December 12, 2006
After years of exclusive Sidekick use, Pat has grown increasingly frustrated with T-Mobile’s complacency with the Danger platform. As the four year mark rapidly approaches, Pat takes a new computer consulting job which offers him a BlackBerry along with free service. Having spent $300 on a new Sidekick 3 several months prior, Pat has a difficult decision to make. Will his loyalties to the Sidekick overpower that of the free BlackBerry, or will he sell out and go corporate, leaving Paris Hilton et al behind? Tune in tonight to find out.
So yeah, I’m a BlackBerry user now. It wasn’t a very hard decision. Kind of a no-brainer, really.
If you read last night’s post, you know my qualms with the Sidekick. Basically, the platform has stagnated. What was awesome in 2002 is now common place. I need my technology new and shiny, that’s how I roll. Second-hand is for clothes and books, man.
Thing is, my BlackBerry isn’t new and shiny. Nor is it old and busted, really. If anything it’s reminiscent of the condition my Sidekick II was in when I sold it to that guy on the street back in August. It’s not the condition of the device that’s important though I suppose; it’s the tech that’s running behind it. And while BlackBerry tech is certainly older than Sidekick tech (1999 versus 2002), BlackBerry is new to me, and that’s all that matters.
Perhaps the best example of BlackBerry tech in action is the email service (I also think it’s a large part of what makes BlackBerries so addictive to people, I find out when I have a new message on my phone before my email client tells me… instant gratification). Sidekicks speak to POP and IMAP servers, but it doesn’t write to either… and that’s an important difference between Sidekicks and BlackBerries: the syncing.
To sync, BlackBerries are reliant on RIM’s BlackBerry Enterprise Server, and Sidekicks are reliant on Danger/T-Mobile’s HipTop servers. Just so happens though, RIM’s setup is better than Danger’s. (Case in point: you don’t see Danger being sued over server technology, do ya?) What’s so great about BlackBerry Enterprise Server is that it works just how you want it to, and you don’t have to think about it. It just happens. Sidekick’s syncing is nice too, but unlike BES where you can have your phone sync to Outlook or Entourage, T-Mobile’s arcane “Desktop Interface” (an unintuitively named “web app” if you can even call it that), only works, well… on the web. Likewise, whereas importing and exporting data from your BlackBerry is as simple as firing up Outlook/Entourage, with a Sidekick you can import your existing contacts and calendars data via a web form on their site, but if you want to export… well… not so much. T-Mobile wants you locked in, man. If you want true Desktop syncing (but only to a Windows PC running Outlook), you can shell out $9.99 for “Intellisync for Sidekick.” Thanks but no thanks Catherine Zeta Jones.
Anyway, long story short, BES works, and it works well. It’s a more open platform. As is the world of BlackBerries in general, really. Want to install an app on your Sidekick? Okay, hit up The Catalog app (it’s on the top and unmoveable, you can miss it), and then browse all of the three applications that are available and pony up the case, sucker. You only get to choose what we, the T-Mobile gate keepers approve. And any apps you buy might break when Sidekick 4 comes out. Okay, now, want to install an app on your BlackBerry? Okay, awesome. Find an app you want via the web browser, and install it. No really, just click on the little .jad file and go to town. That’s it. Google Maps anyone? (Google Maps in my pocket alone sold me on the BlackBerry.)
It’s not all porkchops and apple sauce, though. The single biggest reason for my hesitation to jump ship wasn’t the data exporting like I thought it would be. Nor was it the kinda clunky interface of the Blackberry 7290 versus the SK3. (Quick aside: People criticize the Treo for not being designed from the ground up as a smart phone, but what a lot of people don’t realize is that BlackBerries used to be big chunky pagers with keyboards way before they were phones. Consequently the Sidekick rules all from a usability perspective. Scene.) No, my biggest cause for concern was getting used to the BlackBerry keyboard. Da da dum!
What people whose only smart phone experience has been on a BlackBerry fail to realize is that there are better keyboards out there. I actually hate the BlackBerry keyboard. I’m getting used to it slowly, but I still don’t like it. The Sidekick 3 has one of the best keyboards on the market, whereas the BlackBerry (at least the 7200 series) has one of the worst. Sweet christ, I hope it’s the worst, because I feel for whoever has to deal with anything crappier. (Possibly the bizarre BlackBerry Pearl keyboard?)
The great thing about the Sidekick is that its teeny tiny little keyboard— while trunicated— at least makes sense. Letters and numbers are where they’re expected to be, and punctuation is at least in the ballpark. Anything goes on the BlackBerry, though. Question mark? Oh, that’s on the V key. How about a semi-colon? Oh, that’s buried in the symbols menu. Symbol? Really? I know it’s a shit piece of punctuation, but it’s not an percentage symbol, jesus.
Another thing that was great about the Sidekick keyboard was that the keys were offset like on a real keyboard. This (as far as I know) is completely unique to the Sidekick. Every other phone I see with a QWERTY keyboard has the keys lined up in a grid. Q is directly above A, W above S, et cetera. That’s what happens when an engineer solves a problem versus someone who will actually be using the damn thing. Sidekicks have always had little nubs on the F and J keys as well to help you type without looking, ala real keyboards again.
The only thing BlackBerry has on the Sidekick from a typist’s perspective is the on software side of things. RIM again has the edge on Danger there. It’s as if RIM knew they had a shitty keyboard, so they had to make the text input as smart as possible. For example, you never have to type a period at the end of a sentence on a BlackBerry. Weird, right? No, instead you hit space twice, and then start on your next sentence. The BlackBerry sees what you’re doing and changes the first space into a period and capitalizes the first letter of the word for you. Not bad. Likewise, if you need to capitalize a letter, don’t hit shift. Hitting shift is for pussies. Just hold the letter an extra half second, and it capitalizes itself. Need to put a accent on a letter? Hit the letter, then spin the scroll wheel until you get to the right accent. There’s a bunch of little tricks, probably some that I haven’t even found yet.
But that’s sort of the problem, though. The Sidekick is great, because you can just type. You don’t need to learn all of these little tricks, you just go. The BlackBerry is (again) like a Palm, where you have to relearn things to compensate for the device’s shortcomings. It’s 2006 guys… it should be the other way around by now. The device should be compensating for your shortcomings.
Anyway, enough about keyboards. That’s really the biggest thing, though. Also on the hardware side of things, I dig having a phone that can charge over USB. Very nice. No bringing around extra chargers wherever I go anymore. Also, speaking of power, the BlackBerry is pretty energy efficient. It has a comparable screen to the Sidekick (same resolution, actually), and operates on the same network, but it just seems smarter as far as battery use goes. Also, when you’re really low on juice, it automatically turns the radio off while the device still has some power. This allows you to briefly turn the radio back on when you need it one last time to make that really important phone call. Nice touch.
Finally, wrapping up, I must concede that the Sidekick has one last leg up on the BlackBerry: it has the better fidgety behavior for when you’re just sitting around hanging out. “The Sidekick Screen Flip” is hours of entertainment. The best thing I’ve come up with on the BlackBerry is turning it between my thumb and middle finger while holding the screen. Lame.
Anyway. Yes, so I’ve turned to the dark side of the BlackBerry. Rest in piece Sidekick. I do miss you, but I have no loyalties to electronics. I go where the tech is. Maybe the Sidekick 4 will bring me back into the fold.
December 11, 2006
Those of you who know me personally know that I’m somewhat of a T-Mobile Sidekick whore. The original black and white Sidekick was my first cell phone back in 2002. I held out cellphoneless as long as I could, but once I graduated from college, I kinda realized I wasn’t going to get any ass giving out my mom’s home phone number. (Then again, I was living at home, so even if I were to get ass, my mom would be downstairs… good thing I didn’t get any.)
Flash forward nearly four years (!), and now I’m rocking out with the Sidekick 3. What up. I’ll be the first to admit, I was bit reluctant to shell out the $300 upgrade from my Sidekick II (are we doing Roman numerals, or what here, T-Mobile?), and as I’ve discovered in these past few months, my reluctance was well-founded. So begins Pat’s Sidekick 3 review…
The consensus on the Sidekick 3 seems to be: “Sidekick 3? More like Sidekick 2.5! Zing!” And I can’t argue with that claim.
Whereas the upgrade from the original Sidekick to the Sidekick II was huge (especially those of use that skipped over the color-screened SK1), the upgrade from SKII to SK3 is kind of “meh.” Yeah, it’s (slightly) smaller, yeah, there’s (pretty decent) MP3 player, yeah it (sorta) has Bluetooth, and yeah the (crappy) camera is better… but that’s the big stuff. And that’s not even very big, really. It’s 2006 for Christ sake. In 2002 the original Sidekick was incredible. I’d show it to people and they’d look at me like I was Max Headroom from that episode of Next Generation showing up from the 26th century. Now though, the Sidekick is playing catch up. Built-in MP3 player? Okay, great, but can you use the MP3’s as ringtones? Not so much. 1.3MP camera? Okay, but can it shoot video? Nope. EDGE support? Nice, but no true 3G? Oh, all right. Bluetooth? Sweet, can you use your Sidekick as a modem? Oh, no, bummer. Can it even do rudimentary syncing with a computer? Oh, okay. Stuff that’s now standard on other phones is foreign to the ‘Kick.
Anyway, enough of my curmudgeoness… give us the good news, Pat. Okay… uh, besides it being smaller? Because it is. A little. It feels slimmer, and it is slimmer. It feels longer, and it is longer. It feels less wide, but it isn’t, really. If you took the rubber baby buggy bumpers off the Sidekick II, it’d be the same width as the Sidekick 3. But again, curmudgeony. (Also the lack of bumpers makes the L and R and other side buttons a bitch to hit.) (Damn kids on my lawn!)
Okay, well, like I said, the MP3 player is actually pretty good. It runs off the miniSD card Danger crammed in the SK3’s backside. T-Mobile includes a 64MB card to get you started (space is shared with the MP3 player and camera), but you can just pop off the back cover and put your own card in, up to 2GB. (Also, when you take the back cover off, the phone knows it and warns you… impressive.) Anyway, to get started, you just plug your Sidekick into your computer, the card pops up as a USB mass storage device, and you drag music into the “MUSIC” folder on the card. Then eject the card, unplug, and go. No crappy software to deal with, no fuss, no muss. Not bad. You can make playlists on the Sidekick, sort by artist, album, look at album art, everything you’d expect out of an actual dedicated MP3 player. Not bad again. And what’s better, if you weren’t listening, you wouldn’t even know it’s playing music when you’re using other features on the phone. The system lags a little when you try to multitask loading a webpage and reading an email message, but you can listen to a 192kbps MP3 in stereo while browsing the web without the Sidekick breaking a sweat. Go figure. It must have a dedicated DSP chip for the decoding, because I doubt it’s doing it all in software. The only irksome bit I’ve found is that you can only scrub tracks in the mini player, not the player proper. Weird. Oh, also, after you end a call, if you were listening to music, your song automatically fades back up. Dope.
Before moving on, one qualm about the MP3 player, and the phone in general for that matter: the whole thing is just quiet. Maybe my ears are going because I’m an old man, but the music player is way quiet, and the speakerphone isn’t up to snuff, nor is the regular talking speaker, either. I see people listening to iPods over the noise of the subway all the time… and yeah, that might not be great for your ears, but hey, I’d at least like to have it as an option. Anyway…
Also on the hardware niceties side of things is a somewhat unnecessary addition to the SK3, but at least it’s kinda cool: the new scroll ball. The original Sidekick had a huge, glowing LED scroll wheel; it was one of the device’s most outstanding features (besides the awesome flipping screen, obvi). The Sidekick II shrunk the scroll wheel, but compensated for this shrinkage by adding dedicated page up and page down buttons and shifting the LED indicators over to the (now externally located) d-pad. Now, with the SK3, we’ve in some ways gone back to the old skool, and shifted the light back to the right side, and added this (pretty awesome) scroll ball. The d-pad now acts as not only the ear piece when in phone mode, but the speaker in speakerphone mode, and also the speaker for MP3 playback. Some might say having two four-way directional tools is crazy on a phone. To those people I say: bring on the FPS games. Seriously. One D-pad for movement, another for aiming… genius! I’m waiting for a Doom port, but I know it’s not going to happen. (It should also be noted that the SK3 — and the original SK and the SKII for that matter— have the exact same screen resolution as a GBA. I’m just saying.) (I’m also just saying… are we still at 240×160 res-wise, Danger? Really? Four years? You must have bought a lot of those LCDs.)
And speaking of games, this brings up something else: p.s. your Catalog purchases have been deleted. Sorry. Back in the day, any applications, games and ringtones you bought on your Sidekick transferred automatically to your SKII. SKII to SK3? Not so much. Apparently it’s an API issue, but T-Mobile should hook you up with some store credit or something, because that’s kind of a big deal if you invested a chunk of cash in a platform that you has no upgrade path for your existing purchases. I’m glad I didn’t buy that “Trapped in the Closet” ringtone I was eyeing… viiiiiiiibrate!
Anyway, back to hardware. In other atrophying hardware news, battery-life is better, although not by much. And perhaps not even better, considering I had gotten used to my (nearly) two year old Sidekick II’s limited battery life, whereas this battery is brand new. Then again, this battery is huge, so if it’s not better, I’d be surprised.
The keyboard is sort of a toss up as well. Yeah, it’s cool looking, but I don’t think it’s as comfortable as the SKII’s. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still the best keyboard on the market (save the SKII), but it’s definitely a step down. The rubber keys are gone, replaced with translucent (transparent?) keys with the numbers and letters printed on the bottom. Typing has gotten slightly smarter, however. If you’re typing an ellipsis (…) it no longer auto-capitalizes the following word (something which Entourage on the Mac still does, jesus). It’s a small thing yes, but it’s the attention to detail that matters. And you’ve gotta figure for that if they’ve smartened that up, there’s probably a few other things they’ve smartened that I just haven’t noticed.
Finally, regarding the camera. 1.3 megapixels? Meh, okay, that’s average at this point. I will say this, though: the flash is for real. It’s still not a real camera flash with a filament or whatever real flashes have, but it is a seriously bright LED. Especially compared to the (literally) comical flash of the SKII.
Anyway, so that’s all I’ve got for the SK3. Tune in tomorrow for a surprise cell phone announcement.
October 20, 2006
So I doubt anyone noticed this because 1) very few people read this site, and C) the few that do read it probably do so via a RSS reader, but this past weekend Bear was down. Repeat, we had a bear down. Obviously things are back up and running now, else you wouldn’t be here, but it was traumatic for all parties involved. Well, myself, mostly.
Anyway, the reason for the downtime was that I momentarily let the registration lapse on the website. It was a close call, but I shelled out the tree-fiddy for another year, and all was well.
Point is, it’s been two years of bear now, and boy how the time flies. Whooo weee. I mean, just two years ago I was sitting in front of a computer writing some inane entry about blogging software. Now I’m writing about stats packages. How far we’ve come.
One of my favorite things of having a website is having access to a stats package. Megan is a big fan of Mint, and I actually installed Google Analytics on the site a couple months ago. Call me old-fashioned though, but I just use the built-in stats package that DreamHost provides, Analog. Mostly because it provides daily search query reports which I find hilarious.
So, in honor of Bear’s second birthday, here are some search query highlights of the last two years…
Judging from search queries alone, one would assume that this site would be full of naked gay bears kicking people in the nuts, eating them alive, and then helping them fix their iPods. All from the stance of an anti-Hitler, pro-marker-fumes filthy pirate hooker who wants to declare shenanigans history. While chatting online with pornographic buddy icons, of course.
In reality though, I mostly just write about Nintendo and movies that I’ve seen. Something which you wouldn’t really know looking at that list, oddly enough.
The two things that stick out looking at not just the funny queries, but all searches, are “bear” and “iPod.” The “bear” thing peaked right around the time “Grizzly Man” was airing on the Discovery Channel and Stephen Colbert’s anti-bear campaign was in full swing. It has since died down, but there’s still a steady stream of bear-related search queries coming in every day. As for “iPod,” the
“Your iPod Tip For the Day” page still registers more hits than any other page on the site… probably more than virtually every other page combined. Sad but true, I’m a one-hit wonder as far as Google is concerned.
Combing through all of these queries, what I like more than anything else is the insight it gives one into the depths of the human psyche. I stopped around the 30th page of Google results looking for “
weird shit taken out of people,” but I’m confident there’s a page on this site that somehow fulfills that query; and likewise, someone out there went through 30+ pages of Google search results to find it. That’s dedication.
One other note, maybe it’s because close to three o’clock in the morning right now, but it’s starting to hurt my brain thinking about how this entry is going to get indexed by Google. These keywords could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. By that I mean, before there was no discernible reason to come to this site looking for “weird shit taken out of people” but now that I’ve mentioned that phrase three times on this page alone… well, now there is.
I think I just blew my own mind.
Oh, and that awesome NES game that I really like? Super Spike V’Ball.
October 10, 2006
I must say, it’s good to be a dork in New York. Within the span of a week I’ve had the opportunity to go to Wired’s NextFest, play with the Wii, and go see a documentary about the 8-bit art scene. Now technically I won’t see “8 BIT” until tomorrow, but point is, I had the opportunity to but missed out on Saturday due to ticket booth incompetence. But hey, I did get to do that other stuff.
First off, NextFest was the bomb. I had never been, but Wired has bills it as the “World’s Fair of the Future.” After going, I can say that billing is pretty spot on. Free copies of Wired were in abundance, as were free bottles of Coke BlaK, robots, and nerds.
Obviously one of the highlights for me was the video game section. Atari had great setup, not with their own stuff mind you, but with a bunch of independent game developers. Games ranged from the weird (Brainball), to the awesome (TFT Tennis), to the awesomest (MobZombies). MobZombies was the only game I actually played, and like many things at NextFest, it was definitely beta… well, more like alpha, really. Is there anything before alpha? Anyway, it was held together with electrical tape and running off a 9V battery, if that gives you any idea what it was like. But still, it was really clever, and the dudes (kids, really) who made it were there to answer any question I threw at them. Very cool.
It wasn’t all just video games, though. Jeff Han’s Media Mirror was very cool. At first I thought it was just a live photo-mosaic generator; something where a video camera looks at you, and then generates a live “mirror” image of you with a library of photos on the hard drive of a computer. Upon closer inspection though, I realized that the pictures making up with photo-mosaic weren’t pictures at all, but live television feeds. Dang.
The Vein Viewer does pretty much what you’d think it would do: it views veins. You hold your arm out over this big thing that looks like the x-ray machine at your dentist’s office, and it projects an image of your veins onto your skin in this greenish-Matrixy hue. Pretty groovy and— unlike most things at NextFest— very practical. Oh yeah one more thing: have hairy arms? Oh, okay, I’ll just hit the “hair” button. Impressive.
Panoscope 360º, was actually at NextFest in Chicago last year, has made a lot of progress. I didn’t go to Chicago, but (to me anyway) it looked like the coolest thing there. This year they had three hemispheres going (the full size, a smaller 9′ one, and a flat LCD version), and had them linked together to play a game. It was interesting because the Quebecians (damn you French Canada!) were big Nintendo fans, and openly admitted that their game control setup was inspired by the Wii. As cool as it was, I was slightly disappointed with their booth (err… sphere), because there was a lot of light coming in from the outside, and they wouldn’t close the opening between the two halves for a better 360º experience. Oh well.
Best of show though, has got to be Jeff Han’s (again!) Multi-Touch Interaction Research project. (Truth be told, GE brought Jeff to NextFest, but A] GE can blow me, and 2] I can’t find a link to a GE-sponsored page about the touch screen.) I actually had seen Jeff’s site earlier this year, and while I was impressed at the time, it was only once I played with it in person did I really realize how incredible it was. First off… well, wait, watch the demo video on his site… it’s only three and a half minutes, and it’s got a bitchin’ soundtrack. I’ll wait.
Mmm… Voss energy drink.
You back? Okay. So, cool, right? Very “Minority Report” (there’s also some voice recognition that he’s since added, but the touchscreen is way cooler). There’s a neat touch screen setup at the Samsung Store in Columbus Circle, but it’s not nearly as well-implemented as this, and Samsung is a huge technology company. This is some guy who works at NYU. Jeff’s setup is awesome for a number of reasons. First off, it’s rear projected, so unlike a lot of other touch screens, you’re not obstructing the view of what you’re working on while you’re working on it. Cool. Secondly, it doesn’t seem to be very processor intensive. As best I could tell the whole thing was running off a standard (admitted high-end) laptop PC, which powered both the laptop display and the 36″ x 27″ touchscreen. Thirdly, and most importantly, as you can see it can handle not just one input (i.e. a stylus), but multiple inputs simultaneously. Multiple fingers, multiple hands, and multiple fingers on multiple hands from multiple people. What really set me over the edge though, was at one point, Jeff, myself, and a few other people were all sitting around the table playing with the different gestures that the screen understands (make a fist to pan, two fingers to click and drag, et cetera…), when another person who was standing around reached in to play with the screen. And what happened when that person touched the screen? Not a damn thing. Somehow (something to do with capacitance?) the screen could tell that person wasn’t sitting down at the table, and thus ignored the input. Crazy. Crazy cool. I want one. Damn you GE! (p.s. More touch screeny goodness.)
So if the touch screen was the highlight, the low light had to be the PixelRoller paint brush. I’m not even going to link to it. The guys were douchebags, they were late to show up to their own demo, and the demo was unimpressive. The technology has promise, but if you’re going to bother to demonstrating it to people (nerds in particular), you’ve gotta have some Q&A, give people some specs, do some making-of… that sorta thing. Whatever.
Anyway, yeah, that’s NextFest. I don’t know if it’s going to be in NYC next year, but if it is… I’m all over it. $12 well spent if I do say so myself.
Moving on to the Wii…
So it’s been a week since I played with a Wii. Not my own Wii, mind you… someone else’s Wii. Gross, I know.
For the past couple years, Nintendo has been putting on this “Nintendo Fusion Tour.” Basically Nintendo of America (because Nintendo of Japan would never do this), finds a semi-reputable but by no means “big” band (I think last year it was Evanescence) to go on tour with around the country hawking Nintendo products on the youth of America. I can’t imagine it’s a big cash cow for Nintendo, and the money would probably be spent better elsewhere, but whatever.
Point is, in years previous, I imagine most people go to see the band, and then on the side there’s some Nintendo systems set up to fuck around with. This year though, the band sucks worse than usual (Hawthorne Heights?), and Nintendo actually has some hardware that people care about (Wii!!!). So last week the Fusion Tour came to New York, but they had a couple days downtime before the gig, so they set up shop in the Nintendo World Store in Rockefeller Plaza last Tuesday, and let people come in and play with the Wii for free. Not too shabby. Fortunately I had put in some extra hours at work recently, so I got to sneak out for a few hours, head uptown and spend some quality time dorking out.
Anyway, around 11 o’clock, I stepped out of work and headed up to Rockefeller Plaza with my Game Boy Micro, ready to wait in line until noon when things were supposed to start. I got there around 11:30 though, and the doors were already open and people were already dweebing. Hey, I’ll take it.
So by 11:45, I was playing WarioWare: Smooth Moves on the Wii. Awesome.
Now I don’t mean to brag, but I nailed WarioWare. There were about 15 mini-games and a boss stage, and I beat every one of them. Now you could argue that I just have a natural aptitude for WarioWare— and you wouldn’t be wrong— but I think it’s a testament to the wiimote more than anything else. It was my first time using the thing, and it went off without a hitch. Not too shabby, if I do say so myself.
Regarding the wiimote, though. First off, it’s much smaller than anticipated. Granted, everyone who has played with it has said this, so I knew that going in… but it still struck me as small. Conversely, it’s heavier than anticipated (although that could be a byproduct of its smallness?). As for the tech inside, I think we’re definitely getting our $40 worth. Everything was incredibly responsive, and WarioWare was a good test of virtually everything. There were pointing minigames, there were gyroscopic minigames, there were accelerometer minigames, and there were combinations of all three. And they were all super-responsive and super-intuitive. The only downside of all this was that the wiimote was tethered to the display unit, so I felt slightly restricted, but overall it was very cool. (Also, quicknote about the display units: I dig that the “Wii” logo is off-centered to the right, just like the game packaging is going to be… it’s the little things.)
Anyway, so yeah, WarioWare, very cool. They also had Excite Truck and various Wii Sports games on site, but I figured I could play Wii Sports all I wanted once it came out, and I had no interest in Excite Truck. So that left one last game: Metroid Prime 3.
Unfortunately, after waiting in line for Metroid for a half hour, they shutdown all the Wiis so Hawthorne Heights (who?) could perform an acoustic set upstairs. Totally gay. I took the opportunity to go out to Rockefeller Plaza and have lunch.
(Fast forward one peanut butter sandwich and about three hours later…)
Ahh… Metroid. Metroid isn’t due out until next year, so I figured it would be worth three hour (!) wait. Whether or not that’s the case remains to be seen. I did have a fun time with it, though, that much is certain. My left-handedness was a bit of a handicap (aiming/looking with my right hand, moving with my left), but I pulled it off regardless. The nunchuk isn’t used in WarioWare, so Metroid was my first experience with the other half of the Wii controller. The nunchuk is: also smaller than expected, just as white, and not nearly as hi-tech as the wiimote. It does have an accelerometer built-in though, which (at least in Metroid) gets used interesting ways. One might say I “grappled” with it well. Ha.
Anyway, yeah, that’s the Wii. T-minus 40 days or so until it comes out. I’m definitely getting more excited the closer it gets, particularly now that I’ve actually played with the damn thing. Five hours in the middle of a Tuesday well spent if I do say so myself.
September 30, 2006
So this weekend marks the official start of the fall movie schedule. Summer is over, so now it’s time for the, uh… fall blockbusters? That doesn’t sound right. Anyway, I guess that means it’s time to write about the summer blockbusters? Actually, this is less about blockbusters (I never got around to Pirates… although that was sort of on purpose), and more just about all the various movies I’ve seen to catch things up. So yes, a bunch of mini-reviews:
X-Men 3: Besides being the worst movie-going experience of my entire life— by leaps and bounds, I might add— “X-Men 3″ was also easily the worst film in the X-Men franchise. It was too short, had too much going on, had no cohesive message… and, ummm, other stuff, but suffice it to say, it’s definitely the weakest link in the chain. Although contrary to Megan’s analysis, I’m not entirely sure it’s Brett Ratner’s fault. I mean, he certainly didn’t help matters, but he did a fair enough job emulating Bryan Singer’s style… I think the fault mostly lies in the script. But apparently all that doesn’t matter, because this one outgrossed both of the other X-flicks. $157 domestically for the first one, $215 for X2, and now X-Men 3 stands at $234. What is wrong with you people? Wait, crap, I’m one of those people. Balls. Oh, one more thing… big ups (yes, big ups) to Shohreh Aghdashloo. Almost as good of a random cameo as Troi had in “Crash.”
Superman Returns: The better of two superhero flicks this summer. And this one was even directed by Bryan Singer. “Superman Returns” exists in a bizarre (Bizarro?) world where it’s not a direct sequel to the previous installments, but it takes place directly after the events of first two Superman movies. Singer chose to write off the third and fourth Christopher Reeve superflicks like they didn’t exist and has instead chosen to make a real third movie. I guess it’s kinda like the Joel Schumacher Batman movies; in that it’s not a relaunch of the franchise, but a continuation with new people. Only Bryan Singer’s Superman isn’t totally gay like Joel Schumacher’s Batman. None of this matters though, really, since it didn’t do nearly as well as anticipated (despite me seeing it twice— once in IMAX 3D— and Megan seeing it five times) (five times!). How poorly did it do, you ask? Well, let’s just say “Little Man” bumped it out of its number one slot. Again, I ask you, what is wrong with America?
Cars: When I first heard about “Cars,” I really thought Pixar had finally lost it. I thought they were pandering to the South, to the NASCAR crowd, and it was gonna completely suck ass. Turns out I was only partially right. It’s definitely cashing in on the popularity of NASCAR, and it’s definitely not my favorite Pixar movie, but it’s also definitely enjoyable for non-NASCAR fans, and still a pretty decent flick on its own. I must admit however, that I’m a sucker for 50’s post-WWII nostalgia bullshit, and this movie is brimming with it, so perhaps I’m a little impartial. That said, even taking out the 50’s-ness, it’s still better than “Monsters Inc.” and probably “A Bug’s Life” as well. So there’s that.
Renaissance: See the trailer, it’s better than the movie itself, but the trailer is fucking awesome. Somehow— and I’m not sure how this is possible— it takes the look-and-feel of “Sin City” and takes it a step further. Unfortunately, the plot is a little retarded, and it’s French… so it’s got two strikes against it. But it doesn’t totally strike out… catch it on video. Or just watch the trailer.
A Scanner Darkly: Whereas “Renaissance” is all style and no substance, “A Scanner Darkly” somehow manages to be both completely style and completely substance simultaneously. Seriously, this flick is crazy. I haven’t had such a long post-movie-going discussion about a flick in a long time. It’s a total mind trip, and while it certainly could have been done without all the rotoscoping madness, the animation just makes the whole thing that much more surreal. Philip K. Dick is the man, and Richard Linklater has an amazing range as a director. Oh, and Robert Downey Jr. and Woody Harrelson should probably have a sitcom together if they ever need drug money later in life. Comic gold.
The Science of Sleep: Even Frenchier than “Renaissance,” but it doesn’t lose any points for being so this time. It would be impossible to top “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”— and I think Michel Gondry knows that— but it doesn’t stop him from trying… and trying all by himself at that. No Charlie Kaufman helping out this time, and sadly it shows. Actually, I shouldn’t say shows, because the film itself is gorgeous… it’s the plot that was lacking. Still good though, and extremely charming. And to top it off, the day after I saw it, I hit up Deitch Gallery, and I got to see all sorts of props from the film. Awesome.
The Illusionist: While it was no “Ultraviolet,” “The Illusionist” pretty much sucked ass. Now I’m generally a re-re when it comes to plot twists and movie mysteries and whatnot, but this was just pathetic. Anyone who didn’t see the entire movie coming all along is a super-re. Edward Norton, you should be ashamed of yourself.
Little Miss Sunshine: Everything you’ve heard about this movie is true. First and foremost, it’s hilarious. After that, though, it’s also perfectly cast. Greg Kinnear is great, as is Steve Carell. Toni Collette and Paul Dano also do a great job, but neither of them have a lot to do. The real standouts for me are Abigail Breslin and Alan Arkin. They’re both fantastic, and really set the movie over. Bill Murray was apparently supposed to play Steve Carell’s character at one point, but I feel like that would have been too much of a good thing. Anyway, yes, great movie.
Wordplay: This is gonna sound weird, but “Wordplay,” the documentary about crossword puzzles… a movie about people filling little boxes with letters… you know, the one… was my favorite movie of the summer. Mutants, Men of Steel, French people, Little Miss Sunshines, hell, even Keanu, all pale in comparison. I’m not sure why I liked it so much… maybe it’s because a dude from RPI plays a prominent role in the film, maybe because Bill Clinton and Jon Stewart show up and they’re both left-handed, but I think the main reason is because crossword puzzles are awesome. I didn’t know this going into the film, but I’m quite certain now. It takes incredible skill to design them, and it takes incredible skill to solve them. Now where’s my sudoku movie?
So “Wordplay” and “Little Miss Sunshine” are the highlights. I also just saw “Hard Candy” (with X3’s Jubilee), and “Talledga Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby” (another NASCAR movie?), but I didn’t see those in theaters, so I’m not giving them their own paragraphs. Just know that one was pretty funny and the other was pretty disturbing. I’ll let you figure out which is which.
September 18, 2006
The fact that I’m writing about this week’s Nintendo news rather than this week’s Apple news reveals where my allegiances truly lie. I love both companies dearly, but quite frankly, Apple puts out new iPods every other month, and selling a few Disney movies on iTunes for 15 dollars isn’t very momentous. Nintendo on the other hand, hasn’t put out a new home console in five years. That is huge folks. (I will admit that Apple’s iTV does look pretty fucking cool though.)
So yes, big week for Nintendo. The days leading up to this week’s three-continent-spanning press conference were wrought with speculation. Most people assumed that the Wii would finally get a release date and get a price (it did, and it did). Others we’re saying that it would just be Nintendo announcing what color the system was going to be and how now it could make julienne fries or some other bullshit (it’s white, and it doesn’t). There was more than just the price/date announcement though. So much more.
Basically it went down like this: Around 10pm EST Wednesday night, the Japanese press conference started. News began to trickle in throughout the night regarding the Japanese release, until 9am EST when the American press conference began here in NYC. There was a European conference after that, but no one really cared, because at that point everyone was going crazy about the Wii.
(On a side note, I’m starting to get the impression that they might be sticking with this whole “Wii” thing as the real name of the console. Crazy, I know.)
One of the biggest causes of the internet craziness was the $249.99 price point here in the States. For whatever reason, despite the fact that Nintendo said many moons ago that the Wii would cost “less than $250″ (i.e. “$249.99″) people somehow got in their heads that it would be $200 or even $150. Then word got out that Nintendo was turning a profit on each console sale, and things got even crazier. Idiots. Tycho captures my feelings about the $250 price pretty well:
“The price needs to simultaneously say that ‘we are not those other guys’ while somehow retaining the idea that their machine is the same type of product.”
Okay, so the price is fine, even necessary, but that doesn’t mean Nintendo has pulled this launch off without a hitch. They’ve done a good job, but there’s three little things bugging me:
Thing #1: Release date. November 19th, Nintendo? Really? Two days after the PS3 launch? That isn’t really what I would consider the optimal time to put out a console. I realize you claim to not be competing for the same audience as Sony and Microsoft, but come on here. Now I know you’re obsessed with releasing new hardware on Sundays in the USA. I don’t know why, but you are. So the 19th is putting it off until the last possible minute. Now this either means you think that this is a good release date (it isn’t), or you need more time to work out the bugs (entirely possible). However the bug argument doesn’t really hold water, because I happend to know you gave some blind kid a Wii and a copy of Twilight Princess on “Ellen” this week, so that’s not it either. Although I suppose it’s conceivable you just gave him a GameCube that you painted white and hoped he wouldn’t notice because he was blind. Anything is possible. Point is, November 19th… not such a great release date. (Although I will say it’s better than releasing Advance Wars on September 11th.)
Thing #2: Lack of a second Wiimote. Nintendo, you say you’re trying to expand the market here, trying to get not only the kids, but parents and grandparents to play games as well. An admirable feat to be sure. And what better way to kick off that gamer family than including a second controller right out of the box! Wait, what’s that? No second controller packed in? Poorly played, Nintendo, poorly played. I’m not even asking for a second Wiimote/nunchuck combo, just a second Wiimote. It’d also help illustrate the fact that the Wiimote acts independent of the nunchuck attachment, which I could see being a point of confusion in some households. (And retail establishments, come to think of it… hmmm.)
Thing #3: No “Wii Points” packed in. (Quick refresher: the Wii has a bunch of old console emulators built-in… NES, SNES, N64, Genesis… blah blah blah… you then buy games online for these systems with “Wii Points.”) First off, is “Wii Points” really the best thing the whole Nintendo marketing staff could come up with? Microsoft calls theirs “Microsoft Points.” That’s to be expected from Microsoft… they’re unimaginative. You guys make Mario and Zelda games. Some 12 year-old online came up with the idea of calling them “Nintendo Coins,” and you guys came up with “Wii Points?” Anyway, that aside. I’m not asking for much here, but just include something in the box. $5 worth of Wii, enough to buy a NES game, just to try it out. It’s like the Apple iTMS (err… iTS), they give you a free song here and there with a bottle of Pepsi… you try it out, see what it’s like… then you’re hooked. Nintendo, take a tip from Apple, not Microsoft.
So yeah, that’s it. Three things. Now, I’ll grant you, the system hasn’t come out yet, so I suppose all three of these points could still be resolved. Do I think they will be? No. Will Nintendo be fine without them? Yes, probably. But that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t try. The launch date criticism is purely for the sake of the news-cycle. I’m sure they system will sell out regardless, but I honestly don’t see major news outlets running separate stories within two days of each other demonstrating crazy people standing outside retail stores around the country waiting for video games. They’ll run with the story the night before the PS3, and that’ll be that. Nintendo will be left out in the cold. Literally. It’s going to be fucking cold outside in mid-November. As for the other two points, those could easily be resolved on release day by handing out a Wii Points (Coins?) card and an extra Wiimote with every purchase.
Like I sad, nothing too bad, nothing completely out there, just some little things. And those little things are far outweighed by the big things they’ve done right.
For example, while it pains me to see Nintendo drift away from their “we make games and that’s it” mantra, the inclusion of news, weather, and web “channels” in the Wii interface is genius. Perfect for appealing to the parental crowd; turn on the Wii in the morning, check the weather, read some email, go to work. Awesome.
Likewise, the inculsion of a bundled game— and having it be Wii Sports at that— is also brilliant. It’s like 1991 all over again. The only thing that would have made it more brilliant is including an extra controller.
And finally the “Mii,” despite being a (debatably) gayer name than “Wii” is also genius. Not so much for the novelty of having an in-game avatar that follows you across games (although that is admittedly pretty cool), but because the Mii is stored on the Wiimote. I remember reading somewhere that Nintendo wants Wiimotes to be personalizable (personalizable?) like cell phones. Different colors, stickers, charms, and now Miis. Well played Nintendo, well played.
Anyway, there’s other stuff, but those are the big things. And despite all of this, there are still so many unanswered questions. Will DVD playback be able to be added post-launch, via a software update? What’s up with Rare games on the Virtual Console? Can I play Virtual Console games with a GameCube controller? Moreover, will the retro-controller really be tethered to the Wiimote? Because that’s retarded.
Phew, I think that’s it. Wow, this was a really long post. I don’t think I’ve written anything this long since… uhh, the last time I wrote about the Wii. Crap. I’m a Nintendo-whore. Yeah, well… screw you guys, I’m gonna go… ummm… well, this is embarrassing… I’m gonna go play Ocarina of Time. I spent a good chunk of yesterday and a few hours today playing N64 Zelda on the GameCube. Go figure. My goal is to finish it, Majora’s Mask and Wind Waker in time for the Wii. I’ve never beat any of them, and I’m not the spry 12 year-old I used to be. I’m thinking I’ll be lucky if I get through Ocarina of Time.
Good night Milwaukee!
August 22, 2006
So I’m posting this from Writely… one of Google’s latest acquisitions. It’s an online word processor, and although I’ve only been using it yesterday and today I must say– it’s pretty dope on a rope. I mean, come on, I’m posting this from Writely. Not from MovableType, Writely. I just italicized text from Writely… by hitting ctrl+i… which will then get posted to a MovableType weblog. No HTML needed. Hell, I just spell-checked italicized by right-clicking on it.
It can export to HTML, RTF, Word, OpenOffice, and, hold onto your butts… PDF.
Fuck hoverboards, the future is now.
I’m pretty sure I just heard Microsoft shitting themselves. Wait… hold on, yeah, I just heard it again, definitely poopy pants. Seriously though, there’s virtually no reason to buy Word now. I mean, theoretically there wasn’t before, since OpenOffice is free and has been able to read and write Word files for a while now, but with Writely (and Writely’s brethren… keep reading) the deal is sealed. I mean, it’s a free word processor that’s on any computer with an internet connection. I mean, come oun.
Now there are other Ajaxy-web-2.0-thin-client-browser-based-Word-killer-apps out there, but I think Writely is on to something… and Google would seem to agree.Writely, AjaxWrite and Zoho Writer– I love how everything has “write” in its name– are the “big three” in this game. I say “big three” because really this whole online word processor thing is still in its infancy, really. The problem with AjaxWrite and Zoho Writer (and this is just from my experience of playing with both of them today, so take this for what it’s worth) is that they’re both trying to be Word, rather than replace Word. It’s a subtle difference, but it’s an important one. AjaxWrite in particular is really trying to be Word. I mean look at it. Zoho Writer is a closer competitor to Writely, because like Writely, it actually leverages the fact that it’s online, and allows you to store your documents online, collaborate with other people across the web, post to your blog, blah blah blah. AjaxWrite misses this completely; to quote Nat over at O’Relly Radar“AjaxWrite is no more aware of the network than Microsoft Word 1.0.” As a result, AjaxWrite (I think) really doesn’t stand a chance in the long term.
Zoho Writer and Writely are very similar, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they start allowing users of to port their documents to and from one and other. At the core level, they’re basically AJAX editors that write/format HTML documents on the fly. And like I said before, the both allow users to save their documents online, collaborate with others, compare revisions, import from Word/email, and export to blogs, Word files, PDFs, et cetera. The biggest difference I see between the two is that while Zoho Writer is cool and in some ways nicer than Writely, it already suffers from one of Word’s greatest faults: feature fatigue. (Real quick: “feature fatigue” is the phenomenom that with each added feature a program becomes more useful, but conversely more difficult to use.) Word has an excuse for feature fatigue, it’s 13 years old, Zoho Writer isn’t even 13 months old.
Sure, both Writely and Zoho Writer are lightweight word processors in comparison to Word; but when comparing Writely and Zoho Writer to each other, Writely is truly bare bones, while Zoho Writer looks like… well… Word. There’s buttons all over the place, curvy tabs, drop shadows, blah blah blah. They’re both simple and easy to use once you get the hang of them (and they preempt Word 2007’s “ribbons” to a certain extent), but the fact of the matter is it took me close to three minutes to figure out how to change the name of my document in Zoho Writer. Turns out it was just a matter of clicking on the tab of the document, but if it takes me two minutes to figure out something, it’s gonna take my mom 5 minutes, and my grandmother 10 minutes. And that’s 10 minutes my grandmother doesn’t have.
Now in Zoho Writer’s defense, one of the fatigued features it does have that Writely doesn’t is a word count, and that’s a huge deal to me. Surely there are other features that other people want that I couldn’t give a damn about, but it’s all a matter of balancing the needs of the many with the needs of the few. Spock 4life.
Anyway, this has gone on far too long. Check out Writely and Zoho Writer, they’re both wicked awesome. In the mean time I’m gonna hit this blog post button and see what happens. After that the real question will be can the people that I’m collaborating with post to Bear, because this could just open up a whole new can of worms.
July 25, 2006
So I sold my Sidekick. Which would be fucked up if I were a superhero and actually had a human being which I sold so someone else. Unfortunately I’m not a superhero… unless super-resiliency to wearing dirty laundry is a super power. Which in that case, I’d be, uh… wait… focus Rafferty.
No, fortunately, we’re just talking about cellphones. Specifically the T-Mobile Sidekick II cellphone-contraption-trapper-keeper device. I got mine the day it was available back in 2003. 2003? Sweet christ, that can’t be right. 2004. Anyway, I got it on launch day, and just now I sold it to a guy on the street. Normally, selling stuff to a guy on the street would be a sign of a problem. Drugs problems, gambling problems, landlord problems, pimp problems… something. Not me though, not really. Don’t get me wrong, I have problems, but my problems are techno-problems. The Sidekick 3 has been out for almost four weeks now, and I still don’t have it. That’s a problem.
Problem is, I didn’t have a buyer for Sidekick II until a few hours ago. I was asking $150 for it on craigslist, which I thought was a fair price, but capitalism being what it is, the market was dictating $150 for a new Sidekick II. And as I have already mentioned, a new SKII I have not. So $125 was the going price of my Sidekick II. So sad.
Anyway, there will clearly be some haggling and dickering (dickering) with T-Mobile tomorrow in order to make up for that $25 dollars that I feel is owed to me. In the meantime however…
So what’s one to do when you sell you cell before buying a new one? Inherit one of the billion Nokias that are out there, of course. In my case, I inherited a Nokia 3595 from my roommate Graham.
The 3595 is my first regular, non-smart cellphone. (Actually, I don’t know if I’m allowed to call it “my cellphone” since I’ll probably be handing it back to Graham less than 24 hours after he handed it to me.) Regardless, the Nokia bond is strong, and over the past few hours we’ve become quite close. It’s very sweet.
That being said… how do you people live like this? No QWERTY keyboard, no POP3 client, a sad AIM client, an even sadder web browser… the list goes on. I feel like I’m on vacation in Maine, with all of the technology that’s been relegated to the summer house. It’s not totally archaic, but it’s just a little less than you’re used to.
What’s surprising though, is that there are features this little Nokia has that the big bars of soup known as Sidekicks are still lacking. Yes, despite being $350 and three years further along in the technological revolution, things like voice dialing and MMS support are foreign concepts to the SK3. Also, little things, like a battery that lasts more than 36 hours and games to play besides Asteroids (Backgammon 4life!).
Don’t get me wrong, I’m psyched for the Sidekick 3, but somehow, even though I know this is the free phone Graham got when he signed on with T-Mobile, the grass is always… well, not greener on the other side, but you at least see some of the virtues of that grass. Even though it’s mostly brown.
June 22, 2006
So it’s been a week with the DS Lite. I didn’t get it release day like the good Nintendo fanboy that I am, though. Very sad. I blame the Puerto Rican Day Parade, even though that had nothing to do with it.
Point is, I dropped the ball Sunday, which made the following three day journey to find a Lite and a free copy of Brain Age that much harder. Three days, two Best Buys, four Circuit Citys later though, victory was mine. The things I do to save $20. And, well, to get a DS.
Anyway, yes, it is glorious. It’s damn small. The comparison shots you see of it with the DS (the “DS Phat” as it’s been dubbed) don’t do it justice. Because in the pics you’re like “it’s not that much smaller.” And I suppose it isn’t, really. But when you actually hold it, it’s a different story. “Holy crap this thing is small,” you might say. Playing with one in the store doesn’t even get you ready, because there it’s nailed down and you can’t fold it up and put it in your pocket.
Size notwithstanding, the screens are ridiculous. There are four settings for the backlight. (There are four lights, one might say.) The dimmest setting is comparable to the what the original DS was like. And the highest setting has been accurately dubbed “death” (Cabel, by the way, is hilarious, and I recommend watching his reviews even if you don’t care about Nintendo).
Believe it or not, I think my favorite improvement over the original DS is the new stylus, though. The original DS had a very— dare I say— Japanese stylus. It was teeny tiny, and you felt like you could break it in half if you looked at it wrong. The new stylus is— dare I say— bigger and longer and more American. And I like it. On that same note, my least favorite change is the d-pad. It’s smaller, and doesn’t feel very sturdy. The buttons are way better, however.
Overall, it’s a very Apple-like package, as others have noted. Including my mother. It’s not quite up to Apple standards, though (which, some might argue, have been slipping as of late). The back has all sorts of writing on it, which isn’t aligned very nicely and juts up to the edge of the battery cover. The serial number is on a little sticker, and looks like it could get a hole punched through it if you’re not careful. The early white iBook clear plastic over white plastic look is good, but it’s not carried over to the top edge of the unit, which is a little weird. All these gripes aside though, the design is leaps and bounds ahead of Nintendo standards, so hopefully this is a sign of things to come rather than an aberration.
Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to go train my brain for minutes a day. (Brain Age’s website is almost as funny as Cabel’s.)
June 6, 2006
My German is a little rusty, but I was going for “I am the devil, and I am reborn!” I think I got the gist across. It’s not like I was a German major in college or anything. Wait, no, that’s wrong. Verdammte Scheiße!
I guess there’s still a couple hours left, but the only borderline satanic thing I saw today was a few minutes ago when the iPod that was sitting in front of me turned on by itself and then starting spitting pea soup and fucking my cell phone in the ass. But that was it. And really, that last part isn’t even true. (My cell phone doesn’t even have an ass.) (Even though it is in itself a badonkadonk.) (The iPod did turn on by itself though… little scary.)
Anyway, moving on.
Frankly, I’m disappointed in you, 6/6/06. I expected more out of you.