WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senator Christopher Dodd, the chief negotiator for the Democrats on financial regulation reform in the U.S. Senate, said on Thursday he will unveil a reform bill on Monday, after talks with Republicans broke down.

AP - A Toyota Prius that sped out of control on a California freeway was towed to a dealership Tuesday while federal and company inspectors converged on the car to determine whether a stuck gas pedal was to blame.

Hey there, music fans! Thanks for joining us for Free Music Monday this week, where we offer you 10 free downloads for your eclectic listening pleasure. If you haven’t been with us before, we’re collating free and legal tracks in honor of the #musicmonday tradition on Twitter.

We happily accept your submissions for Free Music Monday as well, and if you’re interested you can find information about how to submit your tracks (or music from artists you represent) at the end of this post. Now without further ado, let’s roll some tracks!

1. [INDIE FOLK] The Exotic Aquatic: “Singularity: — Just right-click your way to a free track from New Jersey-based indie folk popsters The Exotic Aquatic (and peep the video on YouTube). Check out more about the band on MySpace, on their Tumblr and on Twitter.

2. [HARD ROCK] Oblivious Signal: “The Inflicted’s Shame” — This South Florida hard rock and metal trio offers a free download of “The Inflicted’s Shame” (right-click to make it your very own) from the forthcoming album Into the Night.

3. [WORLD ELECTRONICA] The Kyoto Connection: “Vista Panoramica” — Argentina’s The Kyoto Connection makes “sweet electronic music mixed with Japanese sounds.” They’ve got three albums under their collective belt that have been released under a Creative Commons license; download a copy of “Vista Panoramica” and check out lots more free tracks on the group’s website.

4. [FUNK] Filthy Funk: “Breathe” — Right-click to snag a track from New York’s Filthy Funk, combining elements of electronic, funk, disco, reggae and rock. Check out more from the Eklectric album at CDBaby.

5. [WHISKEY ROCK] Juniper Tar: “Birds In Trees” — Three-part harmonies infuse this whiskey-soaked rock jam from Milwaukee-based Juniper Tar. Right-click for a free download of “Birds In Trees” — you can also sign up on the group’s mailing list to snag a copy of the full album.

6. [POP] Joe Cameron: “Slow Down” — Hailing from Indianapolis and currently residing in Los Angeles, Joe Cameron has the distinction of being the first unsigned artist to play on the Ellen Degeneres Show. He offers Mashable readers a free download of “Slow Down” for the low price of your right-click.

7. [INDIE] A B & The Sea: “Bone Dry” — San Francisco’s A B & The Sea recall the feel good harmonious sounds of the ’60s from The Beach Boys to Paul Simon to The Beatles. They’re offering a unique free track promotion where more mailing list signups mean more free tracks given away: Sign up using the widget below or on their MySpace page to get the first two free songs, “Bone Dry” and “Yellow-Haired Girl.”

8. [REGGAE PUNK] Can’t Hang: “Don’t Exist” — The Baltimore-based Can’t Hang brings together reggae, rock, dub and punk to many accolades including “Best Band in Baltimore” from Baltimore Magazine. They offer Mashable readers a free download of “Don’t Exist” (right-click for it) from their latest album, Ride the Lightrail; stream the entire record here as well.

9. [INDUSTRIAL] Ad-ver-sary: Bone Music — Canadian underground electronic and industrial artist Ad-ver-sary is otherwise known as Jairus Khan. Released under a Creative Commons license, both of Ad-ver-sary’s albums are free to download in high-quality format; check out Bone Music for a good introduction.

10. [INDIE POP] The Canon Logic: “Avenue of Criminals” — Vocal harmonies and guitar hooks mix old and new with Brooklyn’s The Canon Logic, which CMJ’s staff blog described as exuding “a Brian Wilson in Williamsburg vibe.” Download a free copy of their new single from their MySpace page, and sign up on their mailing list for a free copy of the acoustic version of “Avenue of Criminals” — or grab both from the widget below.

Thanks huge to everyone for tuning in to Free Music Monday! If you find something you like in this feature, please do share it with your music-loving friends. You can always check out the latest edition of this feature, plus all the past editions, on the Free Music Monday tag page, so be sure to tune in each week. We’ve also included the list of past Free Music Mondays at the end of this post in case you want to check out the back catalog.

Big thanks to everyone who has submitted tracks. If you sent us something and we haven’t included it yet, stay tuned for a future Free Music Monday. You can submit a track by sending email to barb AT mashable DOT com. Since Free Music Monday is now downloads only, be sure to send us an MP3 or two we can use (no more than 25MB file size total please), or send us a link to listen to tracks you’re willing to provide as a free download. Thanks everyone!

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Free Music Monday Back Catalog

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- Alternative Rock Edition - Covers, Remixes, and Mashups Edition - Electronica Edition - Free Downloads for Your Collection (Feb. 8, 2010) - Free Downloads for Your Ears (Feb. 1, 2010) - Fresh and Free Downloads (Jan. 25, 2010) - Get 10 Free Downloads Right Here! (March 1, 2010) - Hip-hop Edition - Labor Day Edition - Live Edition - Rock and Pop Edition - Singer-Songwriter Edition - This Week’s Free Downloads (Feb. 15, 2010) - Video Edition - Your Submissions Edition - Your Submissions, All Downloads Edition

Tags: downloads, free music monday, mp3s, music, musicmonday

This week's puzzle game will either fascinate or terrify you. Maybe both. Oh, and unlike recent mind teasers, it's so impressive that it's being remade for a PC release, which is up for three IGF award nominations and will be in the PAX 10 Showcase! You can find out if it wins any of those awards Thursday, live on the Web. And if you're wondering why this grim game looks oddly familiar, it's because Grim teased you with a trailer video not long ago. If you want another preview of the PC game after playing this flash predecessor, then you can see more imaginative level design in this video.

It's a little hard to describe the game, but a good comparison would be if Jhonen Vasquez was inspired byThe Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Timeto make an artsy game based on the water temple and the shadow temple. If you recall those two temples to be the most tortuous of the entire game, then you'd be right. Now imagine playing the water temple in darkness. It's not that it's overly hard, it's just that it uses a gameplay mechanic that's starkly different from the usual flash games you're used to playing.

Each level is just a single sidescroller screen, but the thing that makes this game so intriguing is that every pixel of the level exists only if you can see it. Let me repeat that so it really sinks in. The level only exists if you can see it.

Every level has a few dim and bright orbs that can be picked up and carried, or be placed on stationery or moving altars. Some doors can only be entered with keys, while others require extra light be shone on them. It's nowhere near as simple as walking around with a flashlight, and many puzzles revolve around destroying parts of the level with darkness while simultaneously resurrecting other parts of the level back into existence by shining light on them. Imagine being blocked by a wall, so you move the light so that you can't see the wall and the floor disappears -- jump over the gap and through the wall that no longer exists and you're in the clear . . . as long as the floor exists on the other side to prevent you from falling off the screen.

Add immense and overwhelming darkness combined with eerie music and you have a game that's creepy enough to make you hide under your covers. Despite the similarities, it's no water temple in difficulty, but there will probably be at least one level that stumps you for a while. Thankfully it saves your progress after each level is completed, so feel free to take a break and come back later to continue where you left off.

You can play Tyler Glaiel's free flash gameClosurehere on Newgrounds. Art and animation by Jon Schubbe and music by Chris Rhyne.

The Canadian Press - PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Michaelle Jean says she's feeling some dread as she begins an emotional return to her homeland.

The Canadian Press - PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - She is one of Canada's 100,000 Haitians, desperate to learn what happened to the people and places she left behind.

"As a bonus we've included an AmmoMule wallpaper that depictsammo high-fiving a slice of bacon."

Sold.

Whatever it is I'm buying, and whatitis isMonday Night Combatfor XBLA. In case you missed the release trailer for the upcoming game, it's a class-based, third person shooter that revolves around a sort ofRunning Manstyle game show where players kill each other for cash. Its style is also pretty blatantly influenced by Team Fortress 2and the new mock ad for it above, which was all rendered in real time using the game's engine, only reaffirms that fact.

See, everything in the world ofMonday Night Combatis sponsored. As you play the game you earn cash and cash can buy you sponsored upgrades like the AmmoMule ammo upgrade, which increases clip size for any class in the game. These upgrades are all part of the extensive career mode the game is going to feature that will let you become one of the top stars ofMonday Night Combatif you're any good at it.

In case you also needed a few more things that don't actually affect the game, but show that their marketing team knows what is awesome in life, then you might want to know that the music for the ad was produced by the guys who composed music forGod of War 1, 2, 3,DarksidersandBorderlands. That banjo you hear in the ad was played by Bill Knopf, a former banjo player for the original Dukes of Hazzard TV show. Random, but awesome none the less.

The Canadian Press - VANCOUVER, B.C. - Twenty-five years after Air India Flight 182 fell from the sky off the coast of Ireland, the legal saga stemming from Canada's worst mass murder continues this week as a key witness in the trial of two men acquitted in the bombing is tried for perjury.

UND to host Entrepreneur Challenge UND's Department of Entrepreneurship will hold its first ever state- and regionwide Entrepreneur Challenge from April 23-24 on campus. Cash prizes will be awarded to the top three teams, and other prizes will be

After a dreary weekend and crawling back to work Monday, you know you want to game. You just know it. And if you wanted to buy a few games, they have those there too. Or you could buy some of my games I'm selling. True Story.So, what have people been doing outside of gaming? On the media front, I've been slowly going through the DVDs of How I Met Your Mother (recommend), and moving through the queue of recent movies at a tolerable clip. (Netflix frees me up to turn the movie off if I decide it's over-rated or not to my taste. I liked Patton, Raging Bull was ok. I turned off City Lights and Annie Hall got sent after violating the "1 week without being watched" rule (which is a good sign that I wasn't that interested ... perhaps later).Streaming I've been watching 30 Rock. Torchwood Season 2 and Children of Men just came out on streaming. I haven't seen Season 2, and what I saw of Season 1 was only ok, but Children of Men is a stunning piece of work (and the first Torchwood I saw, so accessible enough). A mini-series that would do the Twilight Zone proud. Not universally good (it would have been better as a 3-hour series, instead of 5, IMO) but well worth checking out. I added Season 2 to my queue in hopes that there's more gold amidst the dross.And, of course, there's the standard popcorn fare. I just saw Star Trek 90210. It was fine. And you? What should I be watching? Will I watch the Oscars? Steve Martin is hosting, and he's the only host who has Oscar jokes I can remember more than a few days later. (On Bjork's famous swan dress -- "Whew, I almost wore that. That would have been awkward." On the writer's strike -- "Without writers we wouldn't get such classics as Dude, Where's my car. OK, I'm being unfair ... I had read the novel.") I guess I should check out the opening, at least.

AP - More than a year after two Minnesota Vikings sued the NFL over its anti-doping procedures, the closely watched case heads to trial Monday with sports leagues worried the outcome will hurt their ability to enforce drug policies across the country.

AP - Minnesota Vikings Kevin Williams and Pat Williams are about to take their dispute with the NFL into a courtroom.

Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY) plans to resign on Monday after becoming embroiled in an ethics controversy involving allegations of sexual harassment.

It seems unwise to use a keyboard and mouse with Street Fighter IV PC. Something tells us that spinning kicks and fireballs just won't feel the same. But if you've got a Mad Catz Fight Stick lying around, and 20 extra bucks, you could be kicking it like a pro in a matter of a download. Capcom's popular fighter is the next Games on Demand sale item, hitting at $19.99 instead of the usual price.It's also $19.99 on Stardock's Impulse platform, which we've heard is actually kind of cool if you've got a stick up your arse about Steam for whatever reason. The sale for both platforms ends this Monday.Street Fighter IV on PC 50% Off this Weekend [Capcom-Unity]

Marie Osmond son’s funeral: Monday 3/8

The funeral for Marie Osmond’s son Michale Blosil (Michael Bryan) is set for Monday.

The private funeral will be held in Utah for family and close friends.

Michael committed suicide by jumping to his death a week ago. He was only 18.

I have heard there will also be a viewing on Sunday. Which, I mean no disrespect here, really, but WHAT!?

The way he died, how is this possible? Why would anyone want to see their loved one after they went ’splat’ on the sidewalk and then were put back together like Humpty-Dumpty? Ugh, I just hope it isn’t true. I would think that would make his death even more traumatic. But to each his own, I guess. The thought just creeps me out. I would never want to see my relatives dead…and believe me I have had the opportunity more than once. I think it is better to remember them as they were. Your thoughts?

Related Smacks

• Marie Osmond’s Son: Suicide Note Left
• Brittany Murphy Funeral Christmas Eve
• DJ AM Funeral Memorial PICS PHOTOS
• John Mayer “Human Nature” Michael Jackson Memorial [VIDEO]
• Michael Jackson Memorial Service FULL VIDEO

The Canadian Press - TORONTO - The governing Liberals have prorogued the Ontario legislature.

The Equity Market

This is one of those books, The E-Myth Revisited,  that you almost love to hate.   

You hate it because the author, Michael E. Gerber, has a smarmy I’m-right-you’re-wrong attitude about him.  (His examples tend to be stories about borderline stupid business owners who he sets straight.) 

You love him (well, maybe love is way too strong a word) because his principles on how to grow a small business – from concept to maturity — are dead on.  He captured perfectly the process I went through as a start-up businessman 25 years ago, telling the story how I went from one-man show who did everything to my first hires and how I botched that completely, to mini-empire builder, etc.

 So, if you’re looking for some guidelines for bringing your biz to the next level – and you can put up with the author’s smarmy attitude – The E-Myth Revisited is worth the read.

 Work hard.  Make Money.  Have fun.

John Ingrisano

The Freestyle Entrepreneur

(920) 559-3722

February 15, 2010