To The Metal

So after hearing about the thing from coworkers and friends since it came out, I finally decided to get my own. I saved a few bucks, and some patience, and picked up a used unit over at Gamestop in Middletown. The system, plus an extra controller, a copy of Mario Kart Wii, and the steering wheel peripheral, came to just under 4 bills.

I am pleasantly surprised by this game system – if there was any doubt, after a string of less than stellar consoles – Nintendo finally got it right again. For starters – the unit itself, no bigger than a small stack of DVD cases – was designed with convenience and usability in mind. Controllers are wireless, but if you’d liek to use your Gamecube controllers, an SD card, or any other type of supported peripheral – they’re hiding conveniently behind one of several easily accessible covers.

The controls are extremely intuitive. One thing I’ve absolutely HATED Nintendo for was the direction they have taken controllers since the SNES was replaced with the N64. It was like they didn’t want to do the Xbox/PS route, but they wanted their own design – which they already HAD – and thankfully with the Wii – have returned to.

A simple rectangle with a D-Pad and minimal buttons. A “nunchuck” can be added on for further functionality, and a few more buttons. The controls are simple, they make sense, they don’t look like the bastard child of MC Escher and a universal remote.

Not sure how they pull off the full motion controllers, I’ll wager a guess at precision accelerometers – but whatever they do – it works. The driving controls in Mario Kart rival that of any major mainstream racer on the market today. That it is aimed for kids and those of us who are kids at heart and fondly remember the past few Mario Kart titles – is a bonus.

Wii Sports actually had me break a sweat! Normally the only time I break a sweat while gaming is if the windows are closed. Between Bowling, Baseball, Golf, and Boxing – I felt like I was pulling off some serious cardio at the local gym. The simplicity of the sports games is what makes them so addictive. Back in the day of Atari and then the original NES – the graphics were horrid. The sound effects were horrid. The music was horrid. The gameplay SOLD THE GAMES!

The Wii has brought that simplicity back, with a port and polish for good measure. Swing, pitch, punch, dodge, etc… Simple, exciting, and INVOLVED. Within minutes of firing the system up I was an 8 year old in the basement wearing out my big brother’s Nintendo again – that’s how great this system is.

Not to mention – you can actually buy a pretty good number of those classics through the system itself. No need for wires either, it can work itself in to any wireless access point (although punching in a 60 character WAP key was a little strenuous) – I recommend you use encryption if you plan on buying anything over the wireless connection. Never know who is listening.

Back to Mario Kart – Cheers, Folks.

I haven’t said that in nearly 20 years.

Picked up a Wii, haven’t put down the wheel yet. I’ll put up a review later, I just need to go teach that lizard prick a lesson.

Caught someone going off about the Firestone corporation today, and asked what they were talking about.

Stop Firestone

So apparently Firestone gets all of the latex for its tires from Liberia.  They pay a pittance to lease the land, and compensate the workers – who toil for long hours under horrible conditions just so we greedy Americans can let the rubber meet the road.

I say – who cares?  Liberia is a 3rd world country, and the statistics that the site rattles off – like a life expectancy of 50 years for the workers – is probably true for those people whether or not they’re helping to procure the raw materials for tires that I generally never had any interest in.

Every time I see some new group come out attacking another American corporation for abusing some 3rd world nation – I see it as the height of American arrogance!  What is America now but a gaggle of laws and unions which operate in such a screwed up manner that these corporations can’t afford to work here in the first place.

In most cases, it’s reactionary istiots (“ist” + “idiots” for those of you in Warwick) who create the precise negative environments that they later decry!

Are the conditions in Liberia bad?  Sure.  Is it Firestone’s fault?  Doubtful.  Will conditions be improved by taking away jobs and money to satisfy some bleeding heart jackass in a climate controlled office, ranting against corporate policy from behind a computer screen?  Again, doubtful.

Maybe Firestone could pay more, maybe they could improve conditions, and maybe they just don’t care… but after all the negative press they received from the Ford Explorer/Exploding Tire debacle, I can’t blame them for wanting to save money at every turn.

Topped off yesterday with a massive, skull crushing migraine…  Was driving home from the supermarket when I started to lose my vision, right outside my town.  I managed to get home, get inside, down 2 aspirin and bury my face in a pillow before it really got bad.  I think it’s probably blood-pressure related, cos I had a red bull yesterday before the gym and generally I don’t.  So far I haven’t ever been caught on the side of the road with one, but this is probably the closest I’ve come to it.

Went apartment hunting yesterday afternoon, for the most part they were all about the same size or smaller than what I currently have.  What really sucked is I found one out in PI that I absolutely fell in love with, 1100 square feet, brand new everything, completely renovated, CAVERNOUS space… and the frackers rented it the day prior – without letting my Realtor know.

I’m going to get a few pre-approval quotes from lenders, see what sort of mortgage I can comfortably support on my own.  At this point, I’d be happy with a fixer upper that needs work over something brand new, at least then I can shape it into my own home instead of someone else’s idea.

In a word, OUTSTANDING.

Plot, acting, effects, everything – flawless. I thought Transformers set the bar for sci-fi action…

Ironman just upped it.

Looks to be a summer of blockbusters, The Dark Night, Indiana Jones, The Incredible Hulk, OH MY.

Piece of advice, if you haven’t seen Ironman yet – when you do – and you will – stay through the credits.

Lately in both my hometown as well as my work town, there has been a ton of talk about the cost of new and bigger library buildings, testaments to modern engineering and design, bastions of education and information access, etc…

Honestly, I don’t see any justification for the cost.  It’s 2008, not 1908, or even 1608.  For centuries we’ve marvelled at grand libraries.  But they’re also a sign of the times they were built in.  In 2008?  Libraries are obsolete, a waste of money, and misplaced efforts.

First, why have brick and mortar buildings when we could have large warehouses of books available?  Picture something like Amazon.com, only funded primarily by advertising (not tax dollars) where books are available for free to district residents and delivered next day like any other product obtained online.  Want too keep the book?  Go ahead, you can have it at a lower cost than Amazon too!  The ILL infrastructure is already there, built and funded by your tax dollars.  Lets just eliminate – or greatly reduce – the middle man!

Some people will always want to go to the library to get a book, who says we need massive constructs that must accomodate the average Joe?  Go to any modern business and ask someone where a product is, most will tell you – if not collect it for you!  “Yes, I would like a copy of ‘The Cat in The Hat.'”  Request goes into a computer, a worker in the back collects the book and sends it up front in a matter of minutes.  Ever been to B&H Photo in NYC?  Same idea, only instead of having a dozen patrons blindly roaming the stacks in the hopes of finding the book – it is in their hands with no effort.

But what about the Internet?  Many libraries offer public internet access for their patrons.  Sure, there are people these days who either by choice or lifestyle do not have their own computer.  Not everyone needs a system – and that’s why the ideal library is SMALL, cafe size.  Go to any large, modern library – where does the work, study, and Internet access take place?  Not in the stacks, at comfy and quiet areas scattered throughout the building.  Far less room is required, eliminate the aesthetics of the stacks and suddenly we have a very LOW COST and patron friendly solution.

We’ll always need hubs of information and education, even with easy access to the Internet – but it needs to be rethought, massively.  Hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars are wasted on dedicated library structures which are inefficient and rarely if ever used to their full potential.  As more of the world goes online and becomes accustomed to instant information gratification – they will become even more tired, archaic, and un-necessary.

The key is to modernize, simplify, and focus on efficiency.  Eliminate the stacks, eliminate all the added fluff jobs, get these wasteful monstrosities off of the tax rolls.  Build a small yet comfortable public area, and leave the books in a warehouse.  Who needs an overpaid librarian with a wasted masters degree when a $500 Dell can get you the same information in less time and keep your taxes down to boot?

Rest assured, any time a vote comes up for a new grand “statement” in the form of some artsy fartsy library structure – I’ll vote no, and you should too.  It’s un-necessary, inefficient, and insulting to our modern society that works best when we work with less.  Amazon, Gamefly, Netflix, those are the business models that will keep Libraries around well into this new century… the current setup, there’s just no case to continue it.

I’m the proud owner of an HD-DVD player.

So when Blu-Ray won the fight, I figured that eventually I would wait for the prices to come down, then buy myself a Blu-Ray player, maybe even a Blu-Ray burner so I could convert my HD-DVD disks over to the winning format.

Well it has become apparent that Blu-Ray has dropped the soap. They were always more expensive than HD-DVD, and they always had fewer features than HD-DVD… Now that HD-DVD isn’t in the picture, the prices have shot up on pretty much all the players AND the media. If you want HD, you need Blu-Ray, so in the words of Eddie Izzard, all I’m hearing is “Fuckoff!”

What Sony SHOULD do, is offer an olive branch to the HD-DVD adopters, trade-in allowances for the media and players we own that offset the ridiculous prices of the current hardware.

Still, my HD-DVD drive does a fantastic job at upconverting standard DVD’s, and pretty much every movie out there that is available in Blu-Ray is also available in DVD… So why spend the cash? It still looks fantastic on my flat-screen television. What can Sony do for ME to get ME to spend my money on their product? As of right now? Not a damned thing.

So HD-DVD lost the format war, but Microsoft, Toshiba, and their ilk may get the last laugh as they watch Sony finally win a technology battle and then blow the end game.

Blu-ray hits bumps in the road to HD market dominance

With the warm weather come the return of the lazy pro-lifer’s to my office park.

Now I respect their right to protest.

I even respect their opinion, personally – I find abortion just plain icky.

Still, they never come out when it rains.

Most times it is one old fart in a tiny car with 2 dozen signs that he puts up while he camps out at the entrance to the corporate park.

I find it a great opportunity for mocking. Free speech, right?

So my plan is, to keep my own signs on hand, tucked away in my pickup. When the protestors show up, I will turn my carbon footprint into a big mocking pro-death billboard. If you have any ideas for slogans, please drop me a comment!

“DICK CHENEY’S MOTHER HAD NO CHOICE.”

“ABORTION KEEPS EDUCATION COSTS DOWN”

“SUPPORT THE RAINY DAY PRO-LIFE UMBRELLA FUND”

“I’M NOT PRO ABORTION, BUT MY FETUS IS”

“WHEN UNEMPLOYMENT FAILS, PROTEST ABORTION”

“ABORTION: THE ONLY WAY TO KEEP PRIESTS FROM MOLESTING CHILDREN.”

“SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL PARISH TREASURY, REJECT BIRTH CONTROL.”

“IF YOU ABORT – THE CYLONS WIN”

“DARTH VADER IS PRO-CHOICE.”

Now I’m no saint behind the wheel, but when it comes to my job, if there’s a corporate identity on the vehicle – I behave.  That’s what amazes me about some local drivers, they have a corporate identity… something like “Perfect Foods, Inc” and then nearly cause accidents because they’re in a rush!

I’m heading down the road at 55mph when this complete jackass flies out in front of me from a side road.  He doesn’t even stop, just tears out into the middle of the highway, cuts me off so bad I nearly rear-end him, and then speeds off at 70mph.

I don’t give a rats ass what sort of rush you’re in, no health food is worth an accident.  Besides, wheatgrass tastes like poop.