Month: January 2007

Karen dumped 200 ireland pics on flickr just now:

What do people use for rss readers in linux & windows?

I use Vienna & NetNewsWire on Mac. NNW is a bit better but it’s 30 bucks; Vienna is open source and free.

I got to play with a Nintendo Wii the other night.

I was surprised that there are four different physical pieces: the charging pad, left-hand control-pad, right-hand wand, and the cpu system itself. It seems rather unelegent for a gaming system of such exalted k00l status. Right off the bat, though, I was impressed that you can charge the controllers by just placing them on the charging pad. This presumably uses similar tech to my Sonicare toothbrush, which has no metal contacts. I.e. I just place the toothbrush in the cradle and it magically charges. The first time I noticed this I thought “How did they do that?!” followed immediately by “Why doesn’t everything that charges do that?!?”

I could see how someone would have trouble deciding where to put all the pieces. In this case the charging pad was on top of the TV. I assume that this also contains the device that tracks the wand movement.

Otherwise first impression is that it’s quite sturdy and will withstand a lot of abuse, just like all Nintendo products (Granted, the last one I seriously used was the SNES. Also, remember that issue of Nintendo Power in which people had run over their their NES with cars but they still functioned? That was awesome.)

The golf game is enjoyable but I was disappointed that the graphics were not more fun, like being able to put Luigi’s head on Princess’ body and adjust her breast size, etc. I guess they were preoccupied getting the gameplay just right, which is admittedly the whole point of the Wii and yes it is very natural and is fun to play.

Another game involves first-person perspective shooting blue cartoon blobs at holes in trees, presumably to make use of and train you in the art of using the wand and trigger. After you master that you get to shoot at gladiator-like minotaur creatures with axes. You know what I’m talking about; nearly all Nintendo games contain this creature. This is where the Wii really gets fun. Firing off blue blobs is satisfying in a physical way that I have not experienced with video games before, and if that sounds funny that’s because it is funny. It isn’t satisfying like heroin or like the game from the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode The Game, but it definitely stimulated my cortex.

For some reason the system also comes with a copy of the orginal Final Fantasy game from the NES, but with updated graphics. Not cool 3D modern looking graphics; they are still pixelated flat ones but with better resolution and more detail. So where the little Orko-looking mage was once 8×8, now you get at least 8×8 worth of just his little skeletony hands. It’s good clean nostalgic fun; I presume this is included only to give the Wii extra nerd points. Anyway, the game was (is still?) great, so i don’t think I would mind playing through it again. It made me want to play Ultima 6 again too.

Now, aside from PS2 Grand Theft Auto games, I don’t find myself wanting to play video games very much these days, but I am really looking forward to trying the Wii again after the game developers have really had a year or two to come up with some more sophisticated games that really use the Wii interface. It’s defintely more immersive. In other words, the world may finally get the TRON game that it’s always deserved.

In the interest of Full Disclosure I should mention that this actually happened in a dream I had (while sleeping). I have never actually seen or touched a Nintendo Wii, so any resemblence to the actual Wii experience is pretty much anecdotal. YMMV. Also, Nintendo totally paid me to write this.

What is your favourite grain?

What is your favourite UNDERGROUND OBSCURE grain?

I would say quinoa, but technically it’s not a grain, so millet.

Yesterday I saw The Godfather on film for the second time Filmpodium in Zürich. They show old and foreign movies and have themes such as John Huston (lots of good old Bogart movies), Hitchcock, Afrikaans Month, etc. Right now they’re showing a bunch of Ingmar Bergman & Al Pacino. Who knew there were Ingmar Berman starring Ingrid Bergman movies? I guess there are a lot of Bergmans in Sweden. I can’t believe I finally get to see Glengary Glen Ross in the theater.

The first time I saw Godfather was at the Normal Theater, which i dearly missed until I discovered Filmpodium. It’s one of the few things that’s awesome about Normal; an illustrious list that includes Steak ‘N Shake, Abe’s Carmelcorn Shop (RIP), and Michaeleo’s Pizza. Again I am baffled that there are four theaters per town showing The Santa Claus 3 but I had to go from Normal to San Diego to Zürich before I found another theater that shows old movies.

PS If anyone has a picture of Abe’s Carmelcorn Shop, please send. It needs to be immortalized in the form of a wikipedia entry. There used to be this guy who always seemed to be working there who was really taciturn and seemed to get annoyed at all the kids that would hang out in his store. I guess I would be pissed too if I had to put up with a million kids in my store who spent so little money there, but if you run or work in a candy store shouldn’t you be over that?

On the last night there we saw an irish band in a pub. A drunk white man who looked like Alan Thicke was making a fool of himself by attempting to dance. After the band was done Karen made the mistake of making eye contact with him. He came over and said something like “Why are you dressed like that?” and walked away. Karen was wearing a Jingle Bell Run tshirt and jeans; not unreasonable attire in my opinion.

Galway girls in general wear too much makeup.

Since all I talk about is food, I’m sure everybody wants to hear about that. Well Ireland pretty much eats only potatoes & meat on the side. Once I had mashed, boiled, and mashed sweet all on the same plate. But man do they know how to cook lamb. And hamburgers, further causing me to believe that Switzerland just doesn’t understand what a hamburger is supposed to taste like.

Irish men are funny looking. A lot of the medium to older ones are lumpy in unusual ways; I assume it has something to do with the fact that they subsist mainly on alcohol, pork, and fried potatoes. OTOH, all the young guys are totally strapping and lads.

I went running twice. Once I encountered ominous cows and had to turn back. If anything this trip made me take a long hard look in the mirror and wonder how the hell I can be so terrified of pretty much the top 5 most docile animals there are. One morning I had to walk a couple miles in the dark and was certain that I was going to be mauled by rogue night attack sheep.

Thrice I was herded by sheep dogs. Walking into town one day was fairly traumatic just because the dogs followed us all the way in and kept jumping in front of speeding cars. Assuming they do this to more than just us I have no idea how they are still alive. Fifty you hot.

Any given pub was much more comfortable to spend time in than any bar or restaurant I’ve ever been in with the possible exception of Denny’s. You can hang out there for hours. The seats are comfortable. The tables are the right height. There is no smoking inside. Hello rest of the world: it’s not inconvenient to go outside to smoke and it keeps the inside actually tolerable to hang out in and when you leave you don’t reek. Upon my return to Switzerland I tried to find a smokefree bar but there are none. Am I really the only one who feels this way?

Ah well, I just found out that not everyones hates having to move their hands to the mouse to do anything so I guess I am just out of touch.