Scribblenauts: Unplayable

I love the idea of this game and if it was done correctly, I'd love the game. Unfortunately, the controls make it completely unplayable. No matter what you try to do, it will always take a few tries to get it right. Basically, you try to throw an object, jump, use an object, etc, and instead of doing any of those things you just run away from wherever you were standing. I hate games that force you to use the touch screen to move your character, and by far this game handles it the worst. It doesn't sound that bad, but when you end up running into a bee, or falling into water, or pushing an object away from where you wanted it because the controls are terrible, it gets annoying. Especially since it always happens whenever you want to do anything, without fault. Hopefully if they make a sequel it won't be plagued by these terrible controls, because I put this game down before even completing the first world and I don't think I'll ever pick it back up.

Klipsch Image S4: First Impressions

So it's Christmas, and I have new headphones. My second pair of V-Modas broke and my warranty is out, so these came at the right time.

The first thing I noticed when I put them in is the fit. Klipsch really did do it right, the "contour" gels (it means they are oval-shaped) really do make a difference. I'll compare the experience to my V-Modas when I first got those. Their gels were a more conventional round shape.

The V-Modas, upon first putting them in, were pretty bad. They were uncomfortable and slid out a lot, and while the isolation was alright, it wasn't perfect. It took a whole week for my ears to "get used" to them. However, the Klipsch 'phones fit great as soon as I put them in. The medium-sized gels that were on them when I took them out of the package seem to be the best ones for me. One thing that makes a big difference for me is that my right ear doesn't seem to mind these. For some reason, I could never get a comfortable fit or a good seal in this ear with my old headphones. The Klipschs pose no problem at all, isolating and fitting into both ears just fine.

As for the sound, I'm not gonna say a lot since they haven't broken in yet. The high highs aren't nearly as sharp as they could be and the bass is kind of fuzzy, being present and sort of overbearing but not very well defined. I expect this to smooth out as they break in. Despite this, they're still nice to listen to. They do image pretty well, which I like. I might post again after they've done some breaking in. They do leave a good first impression, and even if the sound wasn't going to change much from how it is now I wouldn't be too disappointed. They still sound much better than my old pair and the great fit is a big plus for me.

OK Microsoft, you've made your point.

You don't like Apple, and you don't like Apple customers. OK, I understand. But I like the Zune, so can't we just get along? I've liked them for a while, even before releasing the ones with the squircle control pad and redesigned interface. I probably would've bought one instead of an iPod Classic if there was some Mac support.

Is this out of spite? Is it supposed to bring Mac users back to Windows? They must have a reason that's not "Oh yeah, Macs. We forgot about those." All they're doing is losing a lot of sales opportunities, because as much as I love Apple, I know I'm not the only Apple fan who's wanted a Zune.

And yes, I can install Windows, I can get VMWare Fusion or Parallels, but I'm not going that far just for an MP3 player. I don't want one that badly. And even if I ever do install Windows for some other reason, I think I'll still sit tight and wait for my Mac support. ITunes [and therefore the iPod] has been on Windows for some time, so why not return the favor? It'll sell at least one more Zune HD.

So I visited the Apple store

Here is what I think of the new gear:

- The iMacs were quite nice. Despite what first came to mind when I heard the screen sizes, they aren't gigantic desk-dominating monsters. Well, the 27" sort of is, but that's what it's supposed to be. They're pretty much what they say they are, so I'm not going to go too into it. It didn't quite perform as I expected it to, though. This is actually only in reference to one thing that happened. I was in iTunes in grid view (the one that shows the album covers as thumbnails) and scrolling was very choppy there. My Mac (1.83GHz core 2 duo, 2gb RAM, OS X 10.5.8) does it too [although it stops after all the art has loaded], but this is a matter of the fact that the Mac I used at the store was vastly superior to the one I use at home. Anyway, the reason I was in iTunes was to test the new internal speakers that are supposed to be better than the old ones. They do sound better, but that's not to say that I'd still use them.

-The Magic Mouse wasn't good for me. It's a nice idea, but if they'd just taken the Mighty Mouse (which is now simply the "Apple Mouse") and added multitouch to that it would have been much better. Yes, this is in regards to comfort. The mighty mouse is very comfortable for me. The way my hand rests when I set it down on something is exactly the same way it rests when I hold the mighty mouse. The magic mouse, by comparison, seems like it just doesn't want to exist. It's so thin and small that it's slightly awkward to hold. And of course, that makes multitouch gestures awkward to execute. Maybe it's just because I was standing up and the mouse had one of those security things on it, but it was just very strange to scroll with. Something that didn't aid this was the acrylic plastic it's made of. Apple's glass multitouch trackpads are wonderful because of how easily you can track with them. There's nothing special about the plastic on the magic mouse, so it provides some uncomfortable resistance when scrolling. Thanks to that and the awkward shape, I found myself accidentally clicking the mouse a few times when I meant to scroll or do the swiping-thing.

So while I could probably get used to everything else about the magic mouse (which isn't to say that I'd want to; if I got a new iMac I'd opt for the mighty mouse), there is one thing that it's missing that I just couldn't get past. The buttons on the side. Anyone who's used a mighty mouse surely knows of the buttons it has on the side. Either you love them or hate them, and I love them. I use them for exposé, which makes them very convenient and makes exposé a feature that I actually use (I wouldn't use it if I had to press F9 to get to it). They also happen to be right where my thumb and ring-finger rest on the mouse, so there's really nothing to using them. Because they're there, exposé is a natural part of the "flow," and using it is as easy as pressing the side-buttons. If it's not clear enough yet how much I need to have exposé, go back and read this paragraph again. The absence of the buttons will stop me and this new mouse from ever getting along. I guess if there's a bright side here though, it's that using the buttons wouldn't be as natural on the new one anyway since they'd be in a strange place.

-The New Macbook is essentially what the reviewers have said. I don't know why they got rid of so many ports on this one, namely Firewire. Yes, USB 2 has a higher top transfer speed, but it rarely actually transfers at that speed. Firewire, on the other hand, transfers at a cool 400Mbps (or 800 if your system has Firewire 800 ports) all the time. When I got my external hard drive I specifically sought one with Firewire, and it's been great.

The unibody construction does give it a nice robustness that you're just not used to coming from a plastic laptop. That is a positive aspect. When I picked it up from the corner (while it was opened) there was no creaking or flexing that I noticed. The material they make the bottom out of is nice, it's fairly grippy. It does seem like it'd stain easily, though.

What puzzles me the most is where they price it. For $800 I'd like this a lot more, but with the aluminum 13" Macbook Pro being $200 away, there aren't a lot of good reasons to get this one. Yeah, I can imagine that some people don't want to spend the extra bucks, but for that much you get a lot more in a laptop. I'd do it.

Genius

As in the iTunes feature. If you use it, you probably know the drill. Pick a song, click the button, and maybe you'll get a pretty decent playlist. That's just it though, maybe you'll get a pretty decent playlist. Sometimes it'll actually be a few songs that really do go well with whatever song you start with, but there's often a lot of stuff that doesn't. For example, I made one for Bittersweet Symphony a few minutes ago. I've reduced the list to five (counting Bittersweet Symphony) after getting rid of Van Morrison, Devo, Steriogram's Walkie Talkie Man, etc. And a lot of the content that I took out was pretty good stuff, too. For example, I like Walkie Talkie Man. But when I'm listening to Bittersweet Symphony and I want to hear more songs like it, I don't want Walkie Talkie Man.
What I'm getting at here is that Genius is too broad. It seems like it's trying to base suggestions off of a perspective that covers too many different tastes. For example, I have most of Franz Ferdinand's works in my library, and I also have U Can't Touch This. So does that mean that if you make a playlist based off of U Can't Touch This, you should get The Dark Of The Matinée? Nope. There should be a way for you to modify the playlists after they're made as a way of "showing" Genius what you think should go with that song. If I'd built the playlist for B. Symphony, it would've included songs like Exodus Honey by Honeycut, Bytecry by Weevil, Aluminum by Barenaked Ladies, etc. It ended up being that none of those songs were in the playlist, which is unfortunate since I think they all go well with Bittersweet Symphony.

Anyway, in case you're wondering, the playlist I have after reducing it so much is Bittersweet Symphony by The Verve, The Dark Of The Matinée by Franz Ferdinand, Dashboard by Modest Mouse, The Safety Dance by Men Without Hats, and How Bizarre (Mix) by OMC.

This one's for the Mario Kart DS players: Why I hate you

So I take it you like playing Mario Kart on Wifi? I bet you do, it's pretty fun. I like doing it too. However, you should stop being a shithead. Here is everything you do that I hate:

-Rainbow Road. Yes, it's the hardest track, but that doesn't mean it's the only track. Do you think it's fun to play on this one so much? It's not. Something I think is funny though is that people tend to choose this one when they're doing badly. If you're doing bad, why do you pick a harder track? If the trend continues, then you'll just do worse. And if you're good on this track, it doesn't show any skill. It just means that you spend too much time on this particular track.

-Disconnecting. I don't care if you're losing, stay in the damn game. I can sympathize if you're just not as good as the other players and can't keep up, but if we have a close match and I win, stay in the game and accept that you failed. Disconnecting doesn't mean it didn't happen, it just makes it look like you're a small child who's angry about losing.

-"Snaking." This is a fancy term for "hold down R and move the control pad left and right a few times and then let go of R." It's that boost that happen when you do that. Go ahead and do it when you actually use drift. I use it pretty often for that. If you're using it on straight track to get ahead, I hate you. This doesn't show skill, in fact this shows blatant absence of skill. I used to do it myself, then I realized it was stupid and stopped. I'm still damn good at it though. Whether you always do it or only when you're angry that you're losing, I'll always do it back, and I'm probably better at it. Actually, something I've noticed a lot is that the crybaby players (people who are kind of good but disconnect if you beat them) often resort to this if they're not winning. Then they disconnect when they lose. I hope they break their DSs out of frustration.

A BIT OF IRONY: I'm playing the game online as I make this post and the game I joined after writing "Snaking" involved one player named "crybaby." It disconnected at the beginning of the race, during the countdown.

-"Figure 8 Circuit" is not for snaking. Everyone seems to decide that even if they don't snake in other courses, they can do it here. You can't do it here. That is all.

CFL Bulbs

They should stop smelling like burning plastic when they burn out. I understand that's a sign that the bulb is working right (a sign that it's working wrong would be it catching fire), but I still get kind of crazy over it. Even if it's not on fire, the smell of something burning is always alarming.

Watts ≠ Sound output

This is just a pet peeve of mine.

NOBODY LIKES YOUR SLIDESHOW VIDEOS

Ah, YouTube. There are lots of things it has that you can complain about, today I choose slideshow videos. These are nothing but shitty "me too" reasons to put a video up on YouTube. I wouldn't even care if they weren't so common, but you can search just about anything and the results will be spammed with "[topic] pictures" and it is just a bunch of pictures that you've already seen that scroll by while some shitty music plays. If I wanted to see them, I would have searched the topic in Google Images where I wouldn't have to hear the music and I could see them without them scrolling around or the need to pause for a better look or the overall bad quality. And since the images used are always from the first few pages of a Google Images search, it isn't difficult to find them. So when I search "PS3 slim" on YouTube, I want actual videos of the PS3 slim, not slideshows of the pictures from Engadget.

In summary, these videos are shitpiles. Condemn them.

Happy birthday!

Today is someone's birthday, although I don't know who's. That person gets a happy birthday.

This is why I don't like Guitar Hero/Rock Band

Have I ever expressed how much I like music games? I don't think I ever have.

Well I do. But I don't like these games. Specifically it is because of their use of incredibly popular rock songs. Now I'm not one of those kids who's music taste is the least popular bands he can find. I like the songs themselves, but they make for some awful note charts.

The games are OK as long as you're playing guitar or singing, but a lot of these songs have very repetitive bass or drums. For this reason, GH/RB are the only music games that can actually make me want to take a nap. This isn't meant to be funny, playing the same few notes for the duration of a 4 minute song can be very underwhelming.

I especially don't like Rock Band's drums. I don't like the symmetry and the pedal would be easier if it had it's own column instead of being one big line. Speaking of columns, I don't like the way the notes scroll (at you).

I think it's been quite clear that I'm leading up to something with this post, and I am. Guitar Freaks and Drummania are much better. They're made by Konami and are part of the Bemani series so you know they're good. The reason you haven't heard of them is because they're Japan only. I've played them both though, and they're great. I'll explain one at a time.

Guitar Freaks would look bad to someone who was used to Guitar Hero. This is because it only has three frets. They go a long way, however, because Konami tends to make the best note charts for music games (not counting DDR). I've played the games, and I much prefer Guitar Freaks' charts to Guitar Hero's. Anther thing I like about it, and this applies to GF and DM, is that it pays attention to timing. GH and RB, from what I've gathered, care more about whether or not you hit the note than how well you timed it. GFDM focuses on the actual timing of the note, so your score wouldn't be as good if you hit them a little early or late.

Drummania is more significant in this argument. Instead of having four drum pads, it has five (technically speaking it's three drums and two cymbals). There's also a pedal. The new drums that Guitar Hero is going to have will have the same number to my understanding, but DM's drums are more laid out (google for a picture of them). Drummania's charts make it a shining example of how fun a music game should be. This is because instead of going with popular songs that mostly have pretty repetitive drums, Konami uses music with more intricate drumming. A lot of songs are written specifically for the game by artists affiliated with Konami and as a result, are made to be easy to make great charts for. You can watch videos of people playing this and get a good idea of how great it is, but I can tell you from watching videos and having played it that videos won't do any justice to how fun DM actually is.

The best part of GFDM is that with the "V" series of games, Guitar Freaks and Drummania were put into the same game in a Rock Bandish fashion (except this was before Rock Band). This is why I've been referring to them as GFDM. I've done sessions at a friend's house before (he has an electric drum set that is setup to be used as a DM controller) and they're great.

I first played GFDM before trying Rock Band or Guitar Hero, which is why I never liked either of them very much. I can see why people would like them having not played GFDM, and plenty like them all, but I'm quite partial to GFDM.

I was going to make another post about SUVs but

I forgot that my last post was also about them. It was basically going to say the same thing though, the message would have been "Putting a "Support our Troops" magnet on an SUV is the biggest display of irony I have ever seen." So much for that.

Also it's been such a while since I posted anything here. I'm well aware that the two or so people who read this blog now and then aren't gonna read this, but whatever. I felt like saying it.

Oxymoron

Does it make sense to drive a huge SUV with an American flag on top? I saw an example of this in the form of an Escalade EXV recently (is that what it's called? It's the huge one) and just could not understand it. Do these people even think before putting the flag on? "Oh hey, let's show my patriotism by putting a flag on a gigantic example of how much oil I use." It's the equivalent of going on strike while continuing to do your job.

The V-Modas broke

If you've been keeping up, you'll know that a while ago I had gotten some V-Moda headphones. A while ago they broke and I decided to not post about it until I'd gotten the replacements.

The problem was strange, they broke after sitting on a desk. They were working fine, sat untouched on a desk for a while, then later the problem was spontaneously there. What happened was the left bud would go on and off as the cord moved near the jack. I emailed them about it and they'd given me a response the next day. It took me a few weeks to have the headphones mailed out to them. Then they took their time in sending replacements. The customer service was overall good though, they were prompt to answer whatever questions I had and the new pair arrived the day after they confirmed that it shipped.

They also included all the accessories that come with a new pair, so I've now got a second pleather pouch, extra ear tips (which I needed anyway) and a second "modawrap," which is a hard rubber thing that you wrap the headphones around. That was courteous of them.

I apparently had an older pair of theirs before. The problem with the old pairs was that something would go wrong with the jack after a while due to design issues. Somehow, the pair I got had been sitting in the Apple store for a long while after they changed the design of the headphones to fix the problem, and that's why this happened. The new pair is mostly the same. The jack is the biggest difference, now it is angled and mostly rubber, with a piece of blue metal (matching the rest of the headphones) at the end opposite the jack. Also, the part that connects the wires of the buds to the wire coming from the jack seems to be a bit larger.

I now know what these headphones sound like brand new compared to broken in, though. Before I didn't notice much of a difference since the break in happened over time. I've essentially gone from a very broken in pair to a brand new pair, so the difference is quite noticeable. The soundstage of the unbroken-in pair sounds like the musicians performed in a room that was too small. The bass is also bloated and not as tight as it was. Something I've noticed from running sine waves through them though (I had to see if they'd changed anything sound-wise with the new models) is that they go both higher and lower now. The higher highs (17k+) don't distort anymore and they go a bit higher, while 17k didn't make much sound before you can definitely hear something and 18k makes a tiny bit of sound. Certainly after breaking them in this will improve further.

And as I mentioned, they also go lower. Although you still aren't getting great response below 30hz, it has improved, sounding a bit louder. I'm sure this will also improve with break in.

The strangest thing has happened though, for whatever reason my right ear canal seems to have somehow changed it's shape. While I didn't have issues with putting the buds in there before, it's now quite a challenge. I have tried with both the left and right bud and with different tips, but my ear canal is just strange. Basically, the earbud goes in at some strange angle and the sound loses all clarity and sounds very bloated and muddy. The current fix is a lot of careful repositioning. I can't think of why this might have happened, but I hope it stops.

Dear Apple: no.

The new iPod Shuffle. It's probably the prettiest thing I've seen in my life. Unfortunately, it is crap.

Removing the buttons sounds pretty stupid. They almost did it right, with the buttons being on the headphones. But oh no, you're stuck with the shitty stock headphones! Some other company will make an adaptor, right?

Well, almost. You remember those "authorization chips" that accessories for the iPod Classic/other iPods of that era need to work? Apple is now putting those in the headphones. We can essentially expect $10 headphone adaptors that cost 3¢ to make because Apple is being a shit. Anyone who's read this blog before knows I love Apple, but you'd have to be a pretty huge Macfag to not see what's wrong here.

Back the fuck up.

Was that a commercial for high fructose corn syrup? Really?

I don't know if you've seen it or not, but some guy is sitting on the ground in the park when some woman comes by and she's like "HEY HAVE THIS POPSICLE."*

He looks at that shit and says "Fuck you hoe, I'm not eating that frozen chunk of high fructose corn syrup. That shit fucks you right the fuck up."*

She says "Screw that shit, this shit is the bomb. This shit is all the bombs. It only kills you because you aren't supposed to have that much HELL YEAH at a time. Eat it in moderation, you pussy."*

He says "Fuck, that's swish. Gimme that popsicle. You're still a hoe."*

And then the commercial's over. I didn't know what to think the first time I saw it. I still can't believe they put that on TV. It's one thing to advertise things that use HFCS, but the fact that they're advertising a damn ingredient is just awful. It'd be fine if the commercial was for vitamins or something healthy that they put in food, but it's not. They're essentially trying to convince you that it is OK to eat shit and die.

The commercial does insist that it's good in moderation. That's a lie. Something that is genuinely bad for you is not "good" ever. It's just less bad in moderation. Besides, even if it were true that it was OK in moderation, it is in everything you don't buy at a health foods store. Unless you shop at one, you can't have it in moderation.

There is a good side to these commercials though, I doubt they'd put them on if HFCS-products were selling as well as they used to be. Either it's because of the economy, or people are just getting more health-conscious and aren't buying it anymore. This commercial better not convince anyone of anything though.

* Quotes may be off by a word or two

Focal XS speakers

They're a pair of computer speakers that I used at the Apple store today. They're $600 and good enough that I think I will pass up the Klipschs and get these after I am working. By that I mean they are very good. Granted, the Apple store isn't the ultimate testing environment, but it wasn't that busy and they sounded pretty great.

The first song I demoed on them was something orchestral. It was quiet in the store at the time. For maybe 15 seconds there didn't seem to be any sound, or if there was it was being drowned out by something being played elsewhere in the store. Putting my ear up to the speaker revealed that the sound was coming from the speaker. If you ask me, that's a pretty good statement about transparency. I honestly thought that it was coming from somewhere else.

I turned off this orchestral song after a bit though. These speakers have an integrated iPod dock. This is useful, if you ask me. My friends bring over iPods often and these would be nice for when that happens. Plus, the dock connects to your computer so on top of playing the iPod through it, you also use it to sync the iPod. Pretty cool, if you ask me. Anyway, I used the iPod Touch that was docked with it to listen to some songs I'm familiar with via iTunes previews. The Apple store employees don't care how loud you make things, so I did get to turn them up. They didn't sound strained or distorted even when played loud with songs that are generally loud (ie No You Girls by Franz Ferdinand). Testing conditions weren't the best though, so I'm sure I was missing some of what they have to offer. They were hooked up with the Apple TV, so they were spaced kind of far apart around a large television, and they were stuck to the table slightly behind the TV. This drowned out the sound a little.

The cabinets are plastic and resonate a lot, but for whatever reason the sound of cabinet resonance didn't seem to be there. This is just fine.

The sub was on the table though, so I didn't get to really hear that as I should've. It has a 6.5" down-firing driver and a front firing port. It didn't sound strained with the bassiest songs I tried and did sound rather musical instead of making boring thumps like a lot of computer subs. I tried No You Girls by Franz Ferdinand and Raspberry Jam Delta-V by Joe Satriani on them, for example. They both have intricate bass lines (which really make those songs awesome, if you ask me) that came out just fine. I also tried Under The Influence by The Chemical Brothers which is a very bassy song. At a few parts of the song, there is a loud bass sweep that starts deepish and goes deeper. The sub didn't sound strained during any of this.

I don't know if they have an active EQ or not. They did, however, sound like they could have benefitted a little from an EQ adjustment. I would have turned down the treble. I don't know if the iPod Touch I used in the store had any EQ settings or not though, so I can't be sure if that was the speaker's doing or the iPod's. I should have checked.

Next time I go I'll be sure to bring my iPod so I can try more of my own music. Hopefully sometime I'll get to try them in some better testing conditions though, like perhaps a quieter store or another Apple store where they aren't set up inconveniently around a TV. However, they left me very impressed. It's not unlikely that I'll pass up the Klipsch's and get a pair of these.

Ford Flex

Does anyone else think it looks like a giant Mini Cooper?

Conflicting emotions

Today I was kind of bored and decided I'd rate reviews of things on the Apple site so people won't waste their money. I'm on Beats by Dr. Dre now and several reviews say "these are crap headphones, buy bose instead" and I have no idea how to rate these reviews. It's terrible.

Why does anyone respect rappers?

I don't understand how people can respect someone who is very vocal about how they think they're better than everyone else. The majority of rap songs that I've heard are about how much money the rapper has. Why does anyone want to spend money to listen to an uneducated moron who can't dress himself talk loudly at you about how he has your money? Then they use their money to go and pollute, thereby killing the people who gave them the money. It makes no sense. 

Pastrami owns your face

Seriously, this is the best form of meat. Pastrami is your children's father, it's who you turn to when all else fails, it's your favorite TV show, it's your purpose in life. Nothing defies pastrami. Not even Leslie Nielsen or French Stewart, for they are what pastrami is made of. Pastrami is so amazing that I have lost interest in other sandwich meats. The difference is clear as sex with a pastrami sandwich and sitting in a library where they play muzak. That's right you ignorant shit, pastrami is so great that you can't even compare it to things that aren't pastrami. It even beats itself in how good it is, it's greatness is infinite.

Where's the first place you go to spend money?

When you have money to burn, where's the first place you go? Most people have some store or brand that they always go to first when it comes to this sort of thing. Mine is Apple, which is evident by something I'm going to post about later. But what's yours? Leave a comment.

Fucking parents

Damn parents spoiling their kids. Today I was at the Apple store using what will be the iMac I get after I become employed when this guy and his two sons came in. They walked out with two 20" iMacs. One was for the teenager dude who looked to be about 16, and the other was for his younger brother who must have been 8. This guy bought his supposedly 8 year old son a $1200 computer. My parents wouldn't do that for me now, and we can definitely afford it. No, they wouldn't do it because they're right minded. My iMac of the moment was $1k which was more than I expected them to spend on me at the time, and more than I'll expect to spend on me again. I mean they will never get me another $1k computer because by the time I need another one I'll be of working age, and by that time there is no way they are getting me anything expensive. 

I also saw that kid walking around with an LG Voyager. I wasn't scoping this out either, they were on the other side of the table I was using. Damn other people's parents.

Why does anyone start smoking?

This isn't going to be one of those "HELLO FELLOW TEENAGERS SMOKING ISN'T COOL AMIRITE" type things, just so you know.

Anyway, why does anyone today start smoking? I can't understand it, and normally when it comes to this sort of thing I can see it from other people's point of view. I've tried this, but I just can't think of a reason for anyone to start, in any mindset. You are literally making a decision to spend lots of money on an early, painful death. I can excuse people who've done it always because they grew up when smoking was "good for you." But when people start today, they are basically flying a huge, smelly flag that says "I AM A MORON." It's true and you know it.

I FUCKING HATE MICROSOFT OFFICE FOR MAC

I don't know why Microsoft shipped this, it's clearly not finished. I would forgive an occasional bug here and there but I really can't use it for two minutes without having some problems. I took a break from writing a paper for school to write this post because I need to vent. This software will make it take much longer than it needs to. I've only just started it and I've already experienced the following:

- Disappearing cursor

- I've got two windows open, one full of notes and the one with the actual paper. If I'm in my browser space and my documents are in another space, clicking the Word icon in the dock or in the app switcher will bring my last active Word window into that space. But not the other one.

- Random space switching. If an app wants your attention for something, it will bring you to the space it's in if you aren't already in it. Several times I've gone into the space with all my word windows (keep in mind, it was all of my word windows) and it went into another space. A space with no word windows. 

I honestly think Microsoft left these bugs in to try to bring some users back to Windows. There's just no way they could have shipped this and not seen all of these bugs, because they reliably come up after a few minutes of use. When I'm not typing something for school that requires a certain number of pages, I use Text Edit, which is Apple's stock text editor. It doesn't do as much as word, but at least I can use it without wanting to break a house down with my face.

So sue me

This has been killing me for a while now. Does anyone else hear sosumi (the Mac's infamous error sound for years) at the end of It's The End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine) by REM? Tell me in the comments if you do. I hear it every time and it's slowly making me insane. The first few times I didn't know it was the song so I went through all my spaces and open apps looking for the error message.

PT Cruiser being discontinued!!

That's right. I'm so happy about this. They're going to keep them in production until the end of the summer if I recall correctly. Soon no one will be able to buy a new one, and then some day everyone who owns one/wants to buy used will find out about it's side crash test ratings and then no one will ever drive these. Life is good

And yeah, I'm probably going to ease up on the PT Cruiser posts now.

Voice of the Dollar-Theater

You see, this would have been a better slogan for Altec Lancing because I have never, ever, heard a speaker from them that wasn't absolute shit. Maybe they were good when they still made theater speakers, I wouldn't know. Everything I've heard from them was terrible. Something I've learned to always expect from their speakers is a total disregard for anything over 14khz (which is a shot in the dark, but probably not far off) and most of the sound coming from the cabinet. I'm not going to go on though, I just wanted to complain about "The Voice of the Theater."

Scene kids are a myth

C'mon, how many of these guys have you seen in real life? They make a big deal of them on Gaia (yes I know Gaia sucks) and I can't find out why. In case you don't know, Gaia is a site you go to where everyone is talking about the same things forever, so if you like talking about gay people, abortion, scene kids, the Jonas Brothers, etc, it's a great site. Anyway, everyone there and on various other sites seem to love hating scene kids. I don't have an opinion on them because I have never seen one. As far as I'm concerned, they only exist online. Chances are, scene kids are regular kids who just put on all the scene stuff so they can piss off Gaiafags. Assuming that's the case, I love scenes.

Anyway that was all I really wanted to say. I'll believe they're there when I actually see one. Until then, I will continue to believe they don't exist. Maybe some day some insecure kids who don't want to be preps will assume that other people do it and pick up on the scene thing, bringing them out of fiction. But only time will tell.

I've got this wonderful idea

So if you're a man, I'm sure you've put up with the frustration of people peeing in stalls with the door open. And if you're one of the people causing the problem, go stick your face on the nearest stove and turn it on.

Anyway, I may have found a solution. Basically, you go on Cafepress and order some bumper stickers that protest the act on it. I was thinking for mine I'll put "When did it become socially acceptable to pee with the door open?" I'll use a really dainty font. Maybe the one used in the Ambulance LTD logo. Then you just stick them above the toilet, at what is about eye level for most people. Or on the seat. Just put it where people will see it.

You can also use a sharpie, but I advise against it. If the management wants to take it off (but if it's a guy then he probably won't) then don't make it hard on him. Plus, a sticker looks a lot less "vandialismy" than some scribbles on the wall, so the management will probably be less tempted to remove it in the first place. It's a good idea.

And if you don't want to spend money on this, I've got another solution. Basically you kick the guy really hard every time you go to a stall and find this. Go for the upper back.

Youtube users who dedicate themselves to people they don't like

So I took down most of my YT videos recently because they were bad. I've gotten a tiny response so far. Some are from people who subscribed and are sad to see them go, but others are from the typical "yor juts sad kuz u cant get any abercrombie" folks. What amazes me about these people is how much free time they have to let me know how much they don't like me. It's clear that someone who didn't like my videos wouldn't subscribe or keep tabs by typical means. Since my old videos are gone though, this can only mean that some people have so much free time that they visit my page often to leave comments I won't read. If that wasn't true, they wouldn't be commenting me now.

I never understood their motives, either. People see one video they don't like, so they go through all my videos to leave some bland insult that doesn't bother me because internet insults are meaningless. What's funny is that when I still read my YouTube comments (after a while I just let my account sit there and didn't pay much attention to it) they were usually something like "DIS GUY HAZ NO LIF!!," and still I never went and left the same comment on all of their videos.

I don't know why I'm posting this, though. It's pretty common knowledge that YouTube is just one big cluster of every person with an IQ below 70, plus a few people who will grow up to do more than work at a convenience store.

Oh yeah regarding that post on graphics tablets

I found out that the reason mine sucked so much was because it was too small for my screen. It would often skip over several pixels when moving horizontally, so you may want to disregard that post until I get a new tablet.

50's cars

Specifically 50's Buicks. They're beautiful. I love the styling. The chrome accents look awesome, and I love the bit of white close to the bottom. Why don't they make awesome looking cars anymore? I've been looking at 50's Buicks on Flickr all day and they all look so fantastic. They used to be so iconic, all cars of different brands looking so distinguishable. Now they all look largely the same, save for certain brands having stupid looking grills across their entire line (take Jeep for an example). In fact, grilles seem to be the only distinguishing factor between brands anymore. Different genericars of different brands may have slightly different appearances, but they all look so similar. 50's cars are the best, especially those from Buick and some from Ford. C'mon car companies, can we see some revivals of some amazing 50's cars? I'm not talking new cars with similarities to retro cars. They tried that with the PT Cruiser and it came out horribly wrong. It's like a McDonald's cheeseburger in comparison to a $20 cheeseburger you got at a wonderful restaurant. This might be a bad example though, because there's a number of ways they could make a retro-looking car that's not as sinfully ugly as the Cruiser. But I digress.

If they started remaking all the Buick models from the 50's and just gave some subtle differences (maybe a different name for the car, like instead of  "Special" it could be "Special Revival") to distinguish them from the rarer classics I'd definitely get one. I mean I like these like I like the Mini.

Also, I take back that the PT Cruiser is the ugliest car. I was wrong, I have decided that the ugliest car is actually the PT Cruiser Convertible.

Smart Cars: Why?

Why do they make these? They look strange and are small as hell. I'm told they don't behave well on highways and although they get some pretty good milage, you can have better milage with a Prius. A Prius also gives you more room to move and a backseat and a trunk that is bigger than a box of Triscuits. They do cost a somewhat hefty  bit more (a Prius starts at 22k while last I checked, Smarts started at 17k), but for the extra money you get more room, a back seat, a trunk, colors that don't look crazy on that car, no weird plastic on the sides, better milage, a car that hooligans don't tip over for fun, and some neat styling. You also get some nice customization options.

There's been the possibility of a hybrid Smart. Unfortunately, I'm sure the reason that doesn't exist is because they'd have to make it bigger for the hybrid components. It may have been nice before hybrids caught on, but their moment of glory was very short-lived. If they'd just make it a bit bigger, maybe make a "family" version with a back seat, they could make it a hybrid. That could make some sense. But almost immediately after typing that, I realized that there was already a family hybrid Smart, and it's called the Toyota Prius.

You might like a Smart for it's strange design, so whatever, get one. I'm just saying if you're buying it for the environment, take a look at the Prius. Hell, if you don't mind getting slightly less (as in it is hardly worth mentioning the difference) milage, you can also get a Mini Cooper, which starts at a mere 1k more than the Smart. The Mini gives you a backseat, trunk, great handling, and confidence that your car is unconditionally better than everyone else's. Think about that.

Edit: Further research (see: boredom) has lead me to realize that I was wrong about several things in this post. Feel free to disregard most of it.

Windows 7

Finally, they're getting it right. After six major Windows versions, there's now one I want. It runs well on weak hardware, it's more stable, it's basically got the qualities that made me switch to OS X.

So will I stay on OS X with future computers? Depends on whether or not Apple can top them. They'll sure-as-peas try, because you know how Apple is. I'm definitely getting me a copy of Windows 7 when it's out, though. And I do mean I'm getting one as soon as I can, because Microsoft has made it pretty apparent that they don't want to lose any more users to Mac, so they're really stepping up. You probably know of how they're beta-testing it. If you don't, they're giving a public beta to everyone who wants one. There's millions of beta testers. It can't fail. I haven't gotten the beta though. This is because I don't want to go through installing it (plus my computer doesn't have a DVD burner for to burn the disc image) and I can wait for the final, perfected version. I'll have to clear up quite a bit of hard drive space for it, though. Maybe I'll get a second external drive.

I think I'm going to hold of getting a netbook even longer so I can get one with Windows 7. It'll be a little while, but the wait will pay off when they're pumping out cheap netbooks running Windows 7 at good speeds. Maybe I'll get an iPod Touch to hold myself off for now. That isn't a bad idea. 

Next I'd like to see a Windows 7-esque version of Windows Mobile. Aren't we on version 6 right now anyway? It'd make sense. And if it lives up to the name, then on top of a Windows version I'd want, they'd also have out a mobile OS I'd consider.

And since we're talking about Microsoft, isn't the Zune great? I have no idea why people don't like them. They're just as good, if not better than iPods (though I say the Zune 120 beats the iPod Classic). If I wasn't a Mac user (or if the Zune worked on Macs) I'd probably have gotten the Zune 80 (as it was known at the time) instead of an iPod Classic. After the installation of Windows 7 though I probably still won't get one. It's unfortunate, but I pretty much decided that if I get a new MP3 player, it'd be an iPod Touch.

OPPO Muse G11

http://gizmodo.com/5120847/oppo-muse-g11-the-chinese-pmp-with-a-d+pad-and-classic-game-emulators

For the first time, I want one of those Chinese "MP4 players." You know, the "I've never heard of this brand" ones that seem like they will fall apart if you look at them too hard. Except from what I've gathered by a google search, this doesn't appear to be a cheap product. 4gb of internal memory isn't much (is that mentioned in the Gizmodo article? I may have read that somewhere else), especially for $160, but it's got a funky swivel screen and it plays SNES games and somewhere I read it comes with Sennheiser headphones. I hope this is slated for a US release, because I will buy one. After reading some reviews, of course.

DSI coming to the US on April 4 for $180

And for the first time, I'm not excited at all about a new Nintendo system. Not only is this hardly a major upgrade, but I realized the other day that I didn't buy or even consider buying any DS games during 2008. This is because they have failed to come out with any good ones. Not only is it lacking mildly fun games, but it's also lacking really engaging games. I'm talking Pokemon engaging. I didn't get the new Pokemon games because Pokemon games got old around Sapphire. Sure, cameras and a built in music player and SD card slot and browser are all nice, but my main focus when buying a video game system is playing video games with it. I'll get one when I see one or two good games come out. And I do keep my eye on them.

Actually, Nintendo's just kind of sucked in recent years anyway. They lost all the fun. Plus, they've already released all the latest editions of their 1st party series. Mario, SSB (By the way, Brawl was just Melee with worse levels and some boring gimmiks), Animal Crossing, etc. The only one I have is the new Paper Mario which I rarely play and haven't beaten. And 3rd party games for Nintendo systems have been worse than ever.

They're all shitty pieces of shit made by shit developers. Seriously, no one wants to play "TAKE CARE OF SOME HORSES" or "HERE IS A BABY." I've only ever bought one Wii game. It was whatever the Wii Paper Mario was. It was decent at first but got boring and since then the Wii has gathered dust. I think the reason Sega excretes so much Sonic crap on Nintendo systems is because even though new Sonic games are absolute shit, playing them on a Nintendo system makes them better by comparison.

I'm sure if Nintendo fanboys read this, they'd be pissed. But everyone knows it's true. When's the last time you really had tons of fun with your Wii? Not for a while, I bet. I have a friend who's only system was the Wii and was a Nintendo guy his whole life. His mom wouldn't let him get other systems until quite recently. He hated the Wii. There was next to nothing out for it and the future was dull. He sold it and all his games and got a 360 and he has been happier since then. I'm not kidding. Nintendo's trying to save themselves with these "Wii__" games, but they are hardly games, and no amount of Wii___ games will ever make it worth $250.

But I've done a blog post about the Wii before, so I won't go on. Goodbye.