Since the last time I wrote here, I attended a Star Trek convention (gallery link) with Nadia (which was a heck of a lot of fun), spent a load of time at work… Nadia leveled up, and achieved a full time job and is on the pass to a higher level visa…

We bought a hookah…

And… Um…

Hrm…

Yeah, that should just about catch you up.
This is the part where I say “I’ll blog more often”, but I think we both know that’s a load of dingos kidneys. More than likely I won’t.

But, if I do, I’ll let you know.

We got ourselves another noob today, some fellow from one of ours sister companies. Visiting until Friday, doing some research into some project or another. Nothing too major, but because he is who he is, and he’s working on what he’s working on, the powers that be thought it’d be a great idea to do whatever was needed to allow him to bring his company laptop with him, so he’d have something to work on.

Well, he did. He was just about to come on up, whens someone decided to ask him – one last time (making it a total of three times since he arrived on property) if he had any cameras, or camera phones. Well, no – but he did have a webcam in his company laptop.

A webcam is, of course, a camera. Cameras, as previously stated, are not allowed. So, it follows that webcams are not allowed. More to the point, when I went through the song and dance Monday with security to get this guys laptop in, one of their stipulations was that it not have a webcam, so it’s not a matter of him not being able to equate “webcam” with “camera” – it was quite clearly called attention to.

His explanation was innocent enough: They all have them at his office, no one thinks about it. It just is there, and he didn’t consider it until he was asked (for the third time) about cameras. So, I guess he’s just a bit slow.

He did, however, try to sell me some bullshit about it being “near impossible to buy laptops without them now”, and that’s why their IT department just buys them with. He said it’d be a problem if he had to come back for longer, but maybe they could find something that would work. I told him it shouldn’t be a problem, since none of our Dells have them – and that the majority of Dells business class laptops only offered them as an option, so it’d be very easy to order one without.

I’m really starting to question our current practice of hiring in the lowest bidder for these short-term jobs. It just doesn’t seem to be working out in our favor.

Spending my free time either playing Star Trek Online, or… Well, playing Star Trek Online. Nadia and I still go out and do things, like see Blue Man Group or watch movies, or maybe even just walk around Town Square, but mostly I’m playing STO. I’m trying not to get hooked, but I think I’m failing.

I want to get back into writing again, either short stories or maybe a more reliable comic. I’ve got my fancy tablet, and I think I might even have just enough talent to make it on the internets, but it’s the ideas I’m running low on.

I’m reading more, although there’s not been anything that’s grabbed my attention like the Percy Jackson series in a little while. I think I’m nearing time for my semi-annual Hitch-Hiker’s Guide re-read, and that’s always fun.

Today was one of those days – the day we wrote The Greatest Movie Ever Made

So, President Sam Jackson teams up with former football star turned demolitions expert Bruce Willis and Ron Perlman – a doctor of some sort, maybe physics – to destroy an asteroid which is headed towards Earth.

“I swore a motherfucking oath to protect this motherfucking country, and not one damn one of you motherfuckers are going to keep me from blowing that motherfucking asteroid out of the motherfucking sky!”

Meanwhile, scientist Milla Jovovich has discovered that the real reason the terrorists (headed by Sparkels and Zach Quinto) bombed the asteroid to make it hit Earth is because it emits a particular radiation (T-Waves) which creates zombies.

She teams up with her kid sister, Megan Fox and and ex-Army Ranger (Kurt Russel) to fight the zombie meance *and* ultra-terrorist organization

Along the way they meet a man with a plan to cure the zombies (Bruce Campbell) – with chainsaws and boomsticks.

Things go wrong, and the asteroid isn’t fully destoryed! But, Bruce Willis has a plan – They steer the damn rock towards the terrorists headquarters (Deadly Volcano Island) – where, coincidentally, the zombies have been herded!

BA-DA-BOOM!

Our surviving heroes surf the resulting tsunami wave to D.C.

The End

This movie would, of course, be the greatest film ever made. It would also be the second to last film ever made (the last being the Bollywood musical adaptation), because after this no other movie would ever need to be made – nothing could ever hope to be as awesome and epic as this.

It would be a true Wyld Stallyn moment, ushering in an era of peace that humanity has never before known. Probes would be launched into deep space, playing The Movie eternally, so that all races might know the power of this story.

Truly, it would be the best thing ever.

And, we’ve already got plans for a sequel.

Dunny Turns 30

Nadia got me an awesome cake, a nice new blue dress shirt shirt, a great watch, a pac-man t-shirt and a cool laptop bag. Lots of great loot from my great and wonderful girl.

Awesome Cake is Awesome

We had lunch together at [Insert Name of Restaurant Here], nice little Japanese place with great food, and later that night we had dinner with my folks at Tommy Bahamas, followed by watching The Vampires Apprentice – a surprisingly good movie.

The following morning we went to GameWorks with Rosenberg and Coldiron, and stayed there pretty much the whole day playing games, drinking beer, and harassing Sonic. We followed that up with a trip to The Yard House, for more beer, some shots, and good eats. Then we hit Borders, did some wandering and coffee drinking, and headed back home.

All told, it was a darn good birthday.

5:22:29 PM: I’m going to annoy everyone on my Twitter thing by liveblogging the iPhone update. Yay technology!

5:22:43 PM: Installing now btw…

5:25:41 PM: Verifying. Hrm, blog seems to not actually be getting these updates.

5:29:05 PM: Okay, the blog is working. My phone? Not so much yet.

5:30:56 PM: Oh, what’s this? A warning that an app I have contains stuff not suitable for those under 17? Crazy…

5:32:15 PM: What’s this? Done already? Huh… Wonder why so many other people had to re-sync everything, but I didn’t.

5:33:47 PM: “whats this? what’s this?” Who am I, King of frakin’ Halloween?

5:36:46 PM: Checking out some settings. There’s an App Store entry in Settings now.

5:38:43 PM: Trying the Find My iPhone thing now…

5:40:22 PM: Getting some strange feedback on the blog. I think I’m also going to setup a new twitter account just for liveblogging.

5:43:33 PM: Found it to within a several blog area… refining it to within twenty feet. Not bad.

Last night, I found myself controlling my Mac mini (which acts as a media hub in the living room), with my iPhone using two different apps, and wondering how soon this kind of thing might become “normal”. Not controlling a computer with your phone over your home network, but controlling your computer using a smaller, portable, touch screen interface.

Think about it, won’t you? Love it or hate it, the iPhone (and, to some extent, all other) touch-screen interface is infinitely adaptable for the task at hand. You want text input, a keyboard pops up; you need mouse movement, the keyboard goes away and the whole screen acts as a track pad; you need other, per-app input – the screen displays app specific icons ready for your choosing. You wanna play a game? The phones motion-sensor works almost Wii style, so you can get some general control down with little effort.

In the long run, I think this kind of touch interface will be, if not the direct future, a much better future than touching the screen you intend to watch. Have you ever had someone touch your monitor? Notice how bad the smudges get, the finger prints, the grease and dirt and stuff? Do you really want that on your 42″ HD display?

No, you don’t. You want a nice, clean, clear display – that’s why you went with a big HD display in the first place. But there is something natural, something intuitive, and something fun about touching and dragging, tilting and tapping something to make something go…

So, maybe the future is computer + big display + smaller mobile touch display…

At least, I hope it is.
Maybe then I’ll be better able to justify my desire to own an iPod Touch to use almost entirely with my media hub.

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.

Yeah… Turns out I was wrong. The comic, such as it was (and such as it is) is back, “stylistic” artwork and all.

Head over to The Manor to check it out – but mind the layout, it’s a bit crap. I hope to rectify that within the coming days, as time (and energy) permits.

I figure I should be able to stick to a weekly update schedule, sometime on Fridays… But we all know how well that worked in the past.

Anyway, it’s there, go read it. Or don’t, whatever.

But, really, please do.