Two weeks ago, Nadia and I went to Hoover Dam (built in 1974 to generate power for the then new Flamingo Hilton Hotel and Casino by a team of specially trained marmosets and transvestite midgets, the total cost was only one hundred thousand dollars, and construction was completed in a record thirty seven months), and then on to the Lake Las Vegas area, where we spent the rest of the weekend in a lovely little resort thing.

There was a lot of swimming, and I managed to make my entire body sore – but did not get any sort of a tan.

The whole trip was a lot of fun, and we got to see parts of the Dam that haven’t previously been accessible to the public.

There are pictures, but I’ve been to lazy to actually upload them.
I will probably do so later, but don’t hold me to that.

We hit up the science museum, which was fun, and the zoo, which was awesome. We also walked around Tempe, which is a fucking rathole, and Scottsdale, which as neat – if really bad for food – and did a bit of shopping (I bought a camera).

We rode a “train”, and a camel; we saw a film about Black Holes narrated by Q; we ate astronaut ice-cream, Greek food, Mexican food, and teeny-tiny portions of fish; there was walking, and sun burns; loads of driving, and a dam.

All told, it was a fun couple of days. Still, I was very happy to get back to Las Vegas – Arizona is just not my kind of place.

So, how’s it work?

Well, not to mince words: It works great. It’s been quite some time since I’ve been this happy with a new piece of hardware, but the DSi is just great.

It’s roughly the same size as a light, if a bit thinner and lighter. This is due to no longer having a GBA port. The shell isn’t that slick, glossy plastic that was on the DS Lite – it’s a matte finish, and doesn’t feel like it’s gonna slip out of your hand. Not sure how it’ll stand up to scratches over time, but since none of my other handhelds have ever had a problem with scratches, I don’t expect this one to either.

The screens are much larger – and both brighter and more colorful. It’s much easier to see what’s going on, and games just look better on it. I’m not kidding – comparing the DSi and the DS Phat, it’s easy to see which one looks better in terms of graphics.

The buttons, I think, are placed better than they were on the DS Lite as well. Things are spaced better, and my hands no longer want to cramp as I’m playing. Can’t really say exactly why, but that’s just how it is.

So, the hardware is – in my opinion – better.

How’s the software?

When you power the system on, the system menu is a combination of the standard Sony XMB (seen on the PS3 or PSP) and the Will home screen – a welcome update from the funky, dated four-button mashup that was the original DS screen. Going in and out of any of the included software (settings, camera, recorder, etc) is simple, and – get this – does not require a re-boot of the DSi! Amazing, huh? Finally, changes can be made without having to power down and back on!

In a related note, simply tapping the power button acts as a soft reset- doesn’t power the system down, but does cause it to reset back to the DSi home screen.

The free web browser, available as a download from the DSi Ware store, sucks. It’s not good at all – it’ll barely display web pages, but it does so very slowly. Even though it’s based on Opera, it’s still a pile of crap. Hopefully other, better freebies will show up in time.

The OS is also vastly improved.

How’s the camera?

It’s a mixed bag. Taking pictures with it – in good lighting conditions – is fun. The camera works, in that pictures are taken – and some of the filters are fun too. By popping in an SD card, you can transfer your pictures off your DSi and on to a computer… And, as you can tell by the gallery below, this is not a replacement for a regular, real camera. It’s not even close. But, for messing around it’s pretty good. I’ve included a gallery of shots taken on my, and Nadias, DSi.

Final Thoughts?

All told, this is a great system, and the DS that you should by if you don’t already have one. If you still have a DS Phat, it might be worth considering a trade – it’s far superior to the old hardware. If you happen to have a DS Lite, however – it might not be worth it.

All told, with my DS Lite as trade, the system set me back $120. I think it’s money well worth it – I’m actually happy to play my DS again.

Full disclosure:
I created a list of words to ignore in order to generate this list; the ignored words were:

am, comments, don, dunny, dunny0, entry, moar, modified, pm, posted, tags, views

These words are those that, because of the template, are artificially included in every post.

So, what can we learn from this exercise?
Well – I enjoy the word “awesome”, and “fucking”; I use the word “bring” an awful lot, although I couldn’t begin to explain why; “work” get’s mentioned far more than it should.

While we’re on the topic of words, I’m going to attempt to post at least one (1) blog entry every day this month. We’ll see how that goes.

How can you NOT want to see this?

Computer Desk - Click for Big

Obviously, there’s a lot of Doctor Who going on here, what with the two voice-changing helmets, talking Dalek toy and the TARDIS USB hub. And, of course, there’s the required Star Trek items – I think there’s actually something Trek related in almost every room of the apartment, and that’s beginning to scare me.

The mini Gamera and Ghidorah figures were imported from Japan, along with matching Dreamcast memory cards. Remember those things? They had built in LCDs, so you could play little mini-games when not near the home console? Well, the two that game with these had little Gamera/Ghidorah virtual pet games. They were neat, but I think someone erased both of mine. Someone who wasn’t me.

You may also notice I have a lot of Mac stuff. For the record, that’s the same laptop from the living room; I don’t own two Macbooks. Yet.

The camera get’s almost no use – I had planned on doing some sort of video blog, but once I saw how awesome some of them are, and how horrible the rest are, I lost all interest. Maybe I’ll focus (heh) on documentaries instead.

Next to the Desk - Click for Big

First, The Shirt: It’s a neat little number from Threadless, with a kick ass backstory and some awesome art. As with most Threadless shirts, it was a limited run… and, being a gaming shirt centered around a gaming icon, it sold out fast. I was only able to get an XXL, but I liked the design so much I didn’t care. I think it looks pretty spiffy hanging on my wall.

Yes, I have a TOS uniform shirt. No, I don’t wear it… And, yes, I also have the phaser and communicator to go with it. Got them all at the Star Trek Experience. Eventually, I hope to get a tricorder to go with them.

Table - Click for Big

The mother lode of Doctor Who stuff – a TARDIS from the 80′s, the new series TARDIS playset (which I’ll probably have to replace once the 11th Doctor takes over, seeing as how they’ll be redesigning the interior sets…), a 9th and 10th Doctor and Rose. Not pictured is the Capt. Jack Nadia got for me to mark nine months of being together…

Yes, the Apple Newton still works. It works very well, actually – in fact, if it weren’t so damn bulky (I mean, really! It’s HUGE!) I might consider using it on a day-to-day basis at work… Mostly as a gag.

There you have it – My computer nook. The part of the apartment with the highest concentration of geekness. With luck I’ll get the rest of the pad sorted out this weekend, so I may have some shots of the Game Graveyard, where all my older systems reside.

Friday night we got some teriyaki and watched several episodes of Doctor Who (season four, three episodes)… We’re about half way through the season now, and I think Nadia is really enjoying it. It’s fun going back and re-watching some of the episodes, seeing how the various bits actually played into the overall arc of the season.

Saturday was Valentines day, and we celebrated it by sharing gifts. I got Nadia a teddy-bear (Mr. Bear is almost as tall as her), and she got me a really groovy bracelet with “Carpe Dementia” inscribed on one side, and “Rainbows and Unicorns, Love Nadia” on the other. So awesome. <3

We went to dinner at Tommy Bahamas, , a nice little restaurant at the edge of town. The food was amazing.

Sunday we exchanged seven-month gifts (mix CD for her, Indonesian language lessons for me), packed up the car and headed out to Primm for the remainder of the weekend. The drive was fun, if uneventful. Nadia munched on a Twinkie, I slurpped down a Monster Java drink (mocha flavor, yummy), we listened to some music and just talked… Good times.

Then we got to the hotel. Oy.

Turns out that they don’t do check in until 3PM – a fact that was pointed out to us by a rather surly worker. So, rather than wait around the hotel, we went to the outlet mall to kill three and a half hours.

We did some browsing – well, Nadia did some browsing, I mostly found places to sit and play my PSP. Sometimes I like to shop, sometimes not so much. I still had a great time (finally beat a few levels on n+ that had been troubling me), and Nadia had fun, so it was all good.

We had lunch at a noodle place, the food was okay. One of the items was moving, kinda of reminded me of gagh, although I didn’t say that… It tasted okay. The sauce was kinda yucky, but the food itself was pretty good.

Once we were done there, we went back to the hotel – and were confronted by the LONGEST LINE EVER. I mean, really – this line stretched half way across the casino. It was HUGE! Worst of all, some people were complaining about waiting for over an hour.

Now, it was 3:30pm – half an hour after we were told that check-in started, and people were (obviously) waiting since at least 2:30, probably sometime prior to that… Meaning we were told the absolute wrong time for check in. Worse, we too had to stand in line for an hour to check in.

An hour.

In Primm.

When we finally got to the counter, and found out the room Nadia had asked for (one king instead of two queens) wasn’t available, I blew. Calmly, but I still blew. Mostly I demanded to speak to a manager. Amazingly, a room with a king in non-smoking was suddenly, magically available! All without having to trouble a manager for anything! Huzzah!

We checked in, and crashed for a bit.

Then we hit the roller coaster. I nearly cried, it was so nerve wracking. I normally love coasters, but something about this one just made me not like it at all. Nadia loved it though, so it was worth it just to see her happy.

I got soaked on the log flume too. >_<

We hit the arcade for a little bit, then the buffet. Not much variety, but what they did have was pretty good. Then we hit the room to change (so I could ditch my wet clothes) and went back down to the arcade… Then the bar, then to bed.

Monday we got up, got cleaned up, and were gonna hit Baker, but it was rainy and my wipers weren’t working correctly… So we went home.

A great weekend, all told…

Sunday I watched BSG while Nadia napped – and I’m wondering just how the hell they plan on wrapping up the series, and just how much more depressing things are going to get. It’s really getting bad.

I also – over the course of the weekend – managed to re-watch the entire run of The Middleman, my favorite show of 2008. Turns out it’s available for free watching on the ABC Family website – you just gotta dig for it a bit.

I also stumbled across the new Batman cartoon, Batman: The Brave and the Bold. Damn fun stuff, that. Kind of light hearted, very much just for fun… and it made me realize that Coldiron is Aquaman.

This weekend Nadia and I marked four months together by going up to Mt Charleston. We hiked around for a while, played in the snow, and generally had a damn fun time driving around. At the start, I admit, I thought I had missed my turn – thankfully, I hadn’t and my memory served me well. The back way to the lodge was right where I thought it would be.

I performed a good deed that day too – helped a stuck motorist with a quick jump. They said many other cars had passed them by that morning before I pulled over to help out. Pretty sad, particularly seeing as how we were up the side of a mountain, at least an hour away from civilization and no cell service to speak of. You would think people would band together, but no.

We had an early dinner (or late lunch) at the lodge, and it was fairly romantic: the only problem being some fat broad from Georgia blathering on at the top of her damn lungs. It was bad enough that Nadia, who is always calm, cool, collected and seeing the bright side of everything (my polar opposite, basically) was getting annoyed.

Then we came home, and I was hit with a rather bad sinus infection. Pain in my head, my nose, my ears… I tried to play it off – unsuccessfully – so she went out and got me some medication while I napped.

Then we cuddled, and it was Sunday.

I spent Sunday in a cold medicine induced haze.

But, I would like to at least get something down – so here goes. Might not be the best piece of prose, but at least it’s an attempt at chronicling the events of my Birthday Weekend.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

PTs. Drinks with Coldiron.
Nadia showed up eventually, her friend Yanni followed later.
We had more drinks, talked, played pool.

Then midnight came…

Thursday, November 6, 2008
The new waitress brought out a cake, with candles… For me. Nadia and Coldiron and Yanni sang happy birthday. I was surprised, taken off guard. Mostly.

Nadia gave me a great coat and a spiffy card. Coldiron gave me a Unicorn pen. Yanni brought chocolate. The cake, too, was chocolate with chocolate frosting, my name in green and little hearts or flowers in purple. Green and purple for Nadia and I… I still have some of it in my fridge. It is yuummy.

We all went our separate ways shortly after.

That Morning

Work kind of sucked. I was tired, I was ready to go home almost as soon as I got there. I did my best to just make it through the damn day.

My dad took Rosenberg and I to lunch, and later my co-workers sang to me, a ritual in this department. Off key, at the top of the lungs… A cacophony of comradery.

That night Nadia and I had dinner with my folks. She gave me a watch… I love watches. It was actually a total surprise – I loved it.

We had sushi.

Friday, November 7th

Slept in. Played some games… Saw Repo! with Nadia. It was a great movie.

Saturday

We painted at my parents house. It was… Okay. I had an asthma attack- a bad one. It kept bothering me for a few days, too… I just didn’t mention it much.

Nadia and Dad made fried Spam sammiches. They were yummy.

Sunday
Sushi again. I love raw fish.
With Nadias auntie and uncle.
It was fun. I enjoyed, because I was with her.

Had red bean ice cream, it was different.

Eventually I went over to Coldirons. We played and drank some White Russians and Mudslides then played Halo 3 until 4am.

Monday I slept. I watched Jesus Christ, Vampire Hunter.
It was pretty good.
I missed Nadia.

Tuesday

Met Nadia for Lunch at the Fashion Show mall. Ate at an Italian place. She bought me a Dragonforce CD.

That night, Rosenberg, Coldiron and myself saw Dragonforce in concert. We sat in the VIP lounge, drinking free Mudslides.
It.
Was.
EPIC.

My Twitter feed could not contain the epicness, and my iPhone camera scored and EPIC PHAIL when trying to get any pictures.

Nadia, and the guys, and I, and Anna, had a late snack after the show. They had seen Mama Mia, it got out at the same time.

It was neat.
It was a grand weekend, five days off…

One more day to chronicle tho…

Wednesday
We saw Repo! again.
I am sure now that I like this movie, and parts of it have entered my daily working vocabulary.

There are pictures on the Facebooks, and .Mac Galleries… Eventually I’ll get around to collecting them all and posting them here… Or linking to them or something.

But, all said: It was great.

I just wish I had the words to describe it in full.