I wish I had lots of money...

...so I can get some cheap Matin Logans. Tweeter is going out of business and my dad doesn't want to get any.

Dear Blu-Ray, you are annoying.

Does anyone else hate it how it takes weeks to get from turning on your Blu-Ray player to watching the movie? Seriously, I wish it wouldn't take it's time and just get the job done like DVD used to. First it takes like 8 minutes to start up, then another 8 minutes to load the movie (12 minutes if it's the first time watching the movie on that player). Maybe I'm exaggerating, I don't know. Time slows down so much when you're trying to watch a Blu-Ray movie. It's bad enough if it's a casual movie-watching, but if you have friends over or something and you just want to get to  watching the movie, it's even worse. Maybe my dad's player is just screwed up, but my point is that this sucks. Sure, I bet there's a lot of technological flib-flab explaining why  takes this long, but no amount of excuses will make me hate the wait any less. Any amount of logical excuses about this would be like if a sweet old grandma told you a heart warming story about how 9-11 might have benefitted someone. Sure, but 9-11 was still horrible. This is basically the same thing.

Blackberry Storm, first impression

So today I was at BJ's and got a chance to use the Blackberry Bold at the Verizon kiosk. I thought at first that the clicky screen would make it awkward to use and after a few minutes I found that assumption to be pretty much correct.

Browsing menus felt a little strange. Maybe it's because I'm used to the way it's done on other touch phones like the iPhone, but it was strange anyway. Many times I found myself clicking when I didn't want to and not clicking when I did. The keyboard is even worse though. While they have found a sensible way to give tactile feedback on a touch keyboard, it doesn't really work. The blue glow you get from touching the keys doesn't do a great job of showing you which one you're touching, and since you have to let go of the screen between every key-press (you don't really notice it on other phones, but you typically don't give any time where you don't touch the keyboard between key presses). Because of the this, you have to type pretty slow in order to hit all the keys. It also tires your thumbs out to be clicking it like that. I think it'd be much better as a slider.

However, the touch part of the screen was very sensitive. I'm fairly certain it's the same type of touch surface that is used on the iPhone, since it works no matter how lightly you touch it with your finger but it doesn't work at all when you use anything else.

I also played with the browser a little, but I couldn't really do anything with it. Yes, it loaded a website and from what I saw, was displaying it correctly. Problem is, I couldn't navigate the site at all. In an attempt to click a button, it took it's time and then zoomed in. I was a bit confused, but figured it'd be easier to click it this way. Nope, it paused and zoomed in again. This kept happening until the button filled the screen and I still couldn't click it. That was when I gave up on this phone.

I bet it would be a much nicer phone if it didn't have that click-screen. That's pretty much what ruined it. It was a good attempt, I'll give them that, but unfortunately it just failed to live up to what it should have. Now normally after using something that's this new I'll end up with an impression that's sort of like "I think I could get used to this with time." This isn't the case though. With time, I might get used to navigating it. But I don't think I could ever get used to that keyboard. Plus, even if I did get used to navigating/typing, the click would just make it slower in general to navigate or type. For comparison, I had an "I could get used to this" impression with the iPhone keyboard, phone keyboards in general, the iPod click wheel, the Blackberry Pearl keyboard, and the Wii remote. And I got used to all of those fairly quickly. I think it would be a good decision on RIM's part if they'd just drop the click and ignore the "vibrate" feedback everyone else is doing. That could make this a pretty good iPhone competitor. Or maybe they could just make it an option to have it work without the click. That'd work too. By the way, it does have an accelerometer. There aren't any fancy animations like the iPhone has, but it works without lag and gets the job done. 

Attention: Emotional women

That song you love is not about you. The artist did not have you in mind when he wrote it and probably doesn't know you anyway, and if he did he wouldn't have written a song about an emotional woman who he knew would go around being all "THIS SONG IS ABOUT ME" about it anyway, so just shut up.

Beats by Dr. Dre

You may have heard of it. It's a pair of headphones, made by Monster Cable and endorsed by some guy named Dr. Dre. They cost $350 and are basically what you'd expect them to be, that being otherwise mediocre headphones that are drowning in hype and covered in endorsements and logos. I tried these today and they really disappoint.

They are somewhat comfortable, I'll give them that. But the mids were very thin. I listened to an Earth Wind and Fire song (September, if you're curious) on the iPod Touch I used them on (this was at the Apple Store) and the vocals were very lifeless. There was a huge lack of any kind of warmth, and I just wasn't "feeling" the music.  I admit, this is the only song I tried, but if you've heard it you'll know that after hearing how it sounded on them, I didn't need to hear any other songs.

Despite that it really lacks in sound quality, the noise canceling was pretty good. The apple store was busy today and therefore, pretty noisy. Even before I put on the music, there was a pretty noticeable amount of noise reduction.

So in conclusion, don't buy these. Don't let your friends buy these. These are the first Monster product I've dealt with and even though I know of their reputation among the high end crowd, I was going to remain unbiased until I had a reason to like or dislike them. Because of these headphones, I don't think I'll be buying any Monster products in a good while. I really can't believe that they are charging $350 for these, either. Not even Bose rips their customers off that much. At least Bose makes good headphones. Aside from costing extreme amounts of money, Bose's at least have pretty good sound quality and are very comfortable (much more than the Beats). But seriously, my V-Moda Vibes ($100) sound worlds better than the Beats, and they fit in my pocket.

Whoever says iPods aren't durable is stupid

Or at least new iPods. Chances are, you know of my iPod Classic 80gb. Today while at the mall I dropped it due to trying to change songs without putting a coffee down. Now I have dropped it before, a few times on cement, but those times it was in the iPod sock. This time it was fully unsocked. Not only does it still fully work (as opposed to breaking open, freezing, exploding, liquifying, or doing anything else that an iPod-hater would tell you), but it suffered no cosmetic damage. I'm not exaggerating. When I spend a lot of money on something, I tend to be kind of crazy about keeping it working and retaining it's out-of-the-box beauty. I looked it over on all sides maybe four times and it didn't seem to have suffered any significant scratches on the back, and the whole front, screen and all, were still totally intact. Anyone who says iPods break easily is either stupid or stuck in the past (when they did break easily).

Oh and while we're on the subject, the battery is not guaranteed to die forever after a year and a half of use. My girlfriend's 4th gen, black and white iPod died recently. To my understanding, it was pretty old. The screen was more worn out than the battery. But it didn't die on account of the battery, it died due to a hard drive failure. Anyone who tells you that iPods are a ripoff because of that is pretty stupid.

Put those speakers on hold.

http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/rc/a427/?cpg=81H

I am buying this. They're on sale now too if I get $25+ worth of stuff from ThinkGeek I get one for free so that way I only spend $10 to get both. The speakers will wait, this is very important.

And about not having anything to write about? That's a lie as of now.

Nothing to post about

I have not posted anything recently because there is absolutely nothing to write. It has become such a problem that I am now able to write about the problem itself, thus defeating it except I can't think of anything else to write.

They lied!

Klipsch told me that they wouldn't have the Promedias back in stock until next year. Well they're in stock now. I think I'm going to buy them even though I already have these headphones. Since it's somewhat common knowledge that you can't play loud music on IEMs because they will kill your ears in four seconds, I don't play music loudly on them. I know that if you have good headphones you don't need to play it loud, but some songs just need to be played loud. Like Ballroom Blitz. Anyway I think I will buy these or maybe ask for them for Christmas. That's really all this post is about.

What the fuck is this shit?

Chances are, you know of the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. It's widely hailed as the "greatest thing ever."
However, this halloween I thought they seemed a bit smaller. But I brushed it off, maybe I'm just crazy.
But just now I opened one and it was definitely bigger than the others. So what the fuck?
I google it and yes, they are smaller. For the same price. Screw Reese's, I'm making my own peanut butter cups.

V-Moda Vibe, two weeks later

In case you didn't see the first review, here you go.

Anyway, it's been two weeks (actually two weeks and a day) since I bought them. I think the initial review was maybe four days in. If you've read it (and if you haven't, go do that now) then I'm sure you know that I didn't return them like I said I might.

Even though the fit was terrible on the first day, using them very often (I do mean VERY often, I wore them literally whenever I had the chance, even if I wasn't listening to anything, just because I liked the sound and didn't want to get rid of them) helped a lot. During the first few days I had a problem where they'd gradually slide out every few minutes, but that is no more. They feel very soft in the ears now, and stay in quite well. If you get a pair and have the problem I did, give them a week of very frequent use. You'll be glad you did.

Other than that, what else do I think of them after two weeks? Well the sound is better. As I mentioned in the first review, they drop off on the highs. After the first week though, they seem to have finished breaking in. Another review I read said that it takes them about 10 hours to break in. Maybe 10 hours for the immediate break in, but frequency tests showed significant distortion on 16000kHz after 10 hours. After a week though, the distortion was there but much less significant. I've also helped with the highs by equalizing them just a bit. Here's a screenshot of my iTunes equalizer settings for the headphones:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v408/videocwk/Picture562.png

The slight bass boost is optional since it performs just fine there, I just wanted a little more bass. The significance here is the highs. Does that help? Yes. This gives a subtle, yet important boost in clarity and spaciousness. Even though they sound good prior to equalization, after equalization I don't think I want to hear them again without it.

Yesterday was my last day to return them and quite clearly, I didn't. I don't regret it at all, these are great headphones. I'd still recommend them, so if you're in the business for some IEMs and your price range is around $100, give these some serious consideration. 

"Fun Size" candy. Nothing fun about it.

Where does the term "fun size" come from? I was raised knowing that more candy equals more fun. A giant huge candy bar is much more fun than a super tiny one. So where does "fun size" come from? Maybe it's supposed to make people feel less sad that they are eating a candy bar that is small enough to be eaten in one bite. "Oh jeez, this candy is really small. But hold on, it's fun size! All is well now." C'mon. Why not call it something more realistic, like "less fun size" or "just go get the big one" size.

And yes, Halloween did inspire this blog post. Call trick or treating as childish as you want to, as long as I'm young enough to get free candy for almost no reason, I'm gonna do that.