12/27/2006top

1:08 PM
Merry Christmas a few days late!

I got some neat toys this year. I got Gears of War, a 360 wireless headset, and a DeWalt drill to name a few!

I hope you got some good stuff too because I like you.

-Brett #

12/21/2006top

3:07 PM
Starting tomorrow through December 31st you can download the Mehrunes' Razor add-on for Oblivion on Xbox Live fo' free. It goes back up to three bucks January 1st, so grab it before it's too late.


I like it when microtransaction-obsessed game developers throw us freeloaders a bone once in a while. It makes them seem almost human!

-Brett #

10:42 AM
I thought falalalala.com was doing a great job with the sharing of Christmas music this year.

I was so wrong. The bar has been raised. This Ernie guy is going ALL-OUT.

Ho-lee-moley. In December alone he's shared 131 separate albums. The man is a vinyl-ripping MACHINE!

Today he's posted an album by Raymond Lefevre, Paul Mauriat's arch-nemesis in the 1960s/70s battle for easy-listening supremacy!


-Brett #

12/20/2006top

2:31 PM
Trillian is this neat multi-network chat client for Windows. Unfortunately it suffers from really long development cycles. In fact the latest version was released way back in December of 2004.

Whelp there's some new screenshots and a teaser site up for the next version, Trillian Astra.


It's got a fresh new interface (but is still totally skinnable) and some kind of weirdo MySpace messaging integration.

Still no word on availability, but if history is any indication I'd bet we'll see it released in about a year!

-Brett #

12:24 PM
Here's a great article that explains the bandwidth problems cable and satellite providers face when it comes to delivering HDTV.

Decoding the source signal of an HD channel and re-encoding it at a lower bitrate for distribution to customers is common practice in the cable and satellite industry. There's just not enough capacity on current systems to deliver a virgin HD signal from a content creator without doing some downsampling.

How much downsampling a provider can get away with is governed by things like satellite capacity and minimum bitrate guarantees written into carriage agreements. And, to a lesser degree, customer rage.

Some guy in California is suing DirecTV in a class-action suit, claiming that DirecTV went too far in compressing their HD channels and the resulting reduced-bitrate broadcasts with their visual artifacts and macroblocks could not be considered high-definition. That's pretty sweet and I hope he wins because DirecTV is run by a bunch of jerks who have a tendency to sue anything that moves.

The article suggests that the only solutions in sight are a switch to MPEG-4, the launch of more satellites, and the replacement of cable company head-end equipment and set-top boxes. All of this will take time and quite a bit of money. Meanwhile the American appetite for HD content continues to grow and new HD channels are launching all the time!

I don't even have an HDTV but I've always found this stuff interesting. Behold my nerdism.

-Brett #

12/19/2006top

3:29 PM
Why carry around 20 separate DS game cartridges when just one will do it all?



The SuperCard DS just went on sale this week, and it's the first Slot-1 flash card from the well-established SuperCard company.

All you need is the $50 SCDS and a Micro SD card to put in it. There's no need to flash your DS' firmware, there's no need to put anything at all in Slot-2, and there's no need to patch your games to make them work.

Pretty neat!

-Brett #

10:23 AM
I almost forgot about these cameraphone pics from last week.

Fish and chips at Epcot what what!


The Norway pavilion sells inappropriate Christmas tree ornaments. Why is the moon flesh-colored?


The Japan pavilion sells crazy stuff too! Look at this acupressure kit. I can think of a few different ways to put those three items in the bag.


Spaceship Earth from the bottom up!


Back in the UK for cocktails at the pub, Guvnah.


On our honeymoon three years ago we got our pictures taken for the Leave A Legacy monument.


And there we are, engraved alongside thousands of other people!


Goodnight Magic Kingdom!

-Brett #

12/18/2006top

12:07 PM
I'm back from Orlando, dudes. We had a totally sweet time. Two weeks before Christmas has got to be the best time to visit Disney World. The weather was in the mid 70s and the parks were totally empty. We pretty much walked right on most of the rides. I think the longest line we waited in was only five or ten minutes!

We did Epcot on Monday and I rode a Segway!


I like this picture. Click it for a 1600x1200 blowup!


We also got to do the Finding Nemo ride at The Living Seas, which is running through its soft-opening right now. These guys are sitting out front-


The next day we visited the Magic Kingdom, or as I like to call it, Bizarro Disneyland.


Their Tomorrowland has a cooler entrance than ours.



We had tickets for the after-hours "Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party"...


...and got to see lots of neat things, like Gideon (from Pinocchio) rocking out on the dance floor!


Wednesday we did Animal Kingdom. Here's a nice shot of the Tree of Life. Click for a blow-up!


All these pictures were taken by Tammy. She's a way better picture taker than I am.

This tiger kind of looks like my cats. Except for the stripes. And the orange coloring. And the big feet. Also, my cats are not tigers.


Animal Kingdom closed kind of early so we hopped back over to Epcot that night for dinner.

And here's me at Epcot's Mexico pavilion! Hoo hoo!


It was a great trip and we had a blast. It's also the most time Tammy and I have spent together in a long time.

An hour after we flew in to California we went to the DreamHost Christmas Party which was lots of fun too, even if we were too tired to really enjoy it fully. Now Tammy's in Sweden for a week and I'm back home!

-Brett #

12/08/2006top

11:34 AM
I really like Office 2007. Once you start using the whole ribbon interface you'll love it too. It's a nifty idea and it lays out the suite's features in a very logical and very visual way.

After at least a decade of suffering under Times New Roman, Microsoft got ballsy and changed Word's default font to something without serifs. It's called Calibri and it's so much easier to read on a screen you'll wonder why it took them so long to make the change.


-Brett #

12/05/2006top

10:10 AM
If you only watch one TV commercial this year, it should be Fedex's "Map". It's 30 seconds of awesome.


-Brett #

12/04/2006top

2:48 PM
Ha-hoooo!

Devhook 0.51 means that you can now emulate firmware 3.01 on your PSP... 3.x firmware has an embedded PSOne emulator, so this is especially awesome news.

-Brett #

12/01/2006top

3:47 PM
Sheesh. My spam has been getting downright mean lately.

I just got one with the subject of "Take your Award - Mr. Smallest Ramrod 2006!"

First of all, where do they get off just ASSUMING I need wiener pills?

Second of all, how did they know I won that award? :(

-Brett #


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