Apple disappointment

All I wanted to see was a higher capacity iPod Touch. That's it. I have a lot of music, my iPod was stolen from my car a few weeks ago, and I decided to wait to buy a new one in hopes the iPod Touch would have it's capacity upgrade to bring it up to par with what I need.

No dice.

They made them thinner, and lowered the price. Well that's cool and all, but it's not what I was looking for. If they could put the same capacity in a smaller package, why not leave it the same and increase the capacity? I suppose most people don't have enough music to fill 32 gigs, so why bother adding more?

I might end up getting one anyway. I could get a classic, but then I don't get the touch screen, wi-fi, applications, and games. The touch has so many more features that it's almost worth losing the capacity, I'm just going to have to pick and choose what to put on it.

Decisions, decisions. I'm not sure what I want to do at this point.

RTS phase

One of my favorite videogame genres is the RTS (real-time strategy) games. Namely Warcraft, Starcraft, and Command & Conquer, and all the ones that continue those franchises.

It all started when my uncle brought over a free demo of Warcraft II he had gotten. Not sure if it was from work, came with some other game, or he just happened to see it in a store, but it included the first few levels of each campaign, and it was awesome. I knew I needed the full game at that point.

Eventually I got it, probably as a birthday gift or something, proceeded to play it non-stop. At that point I didn't have many cool computer games, so this one got my undivided attention. I was pretty young though, and the computer I was using wasn't all that great, so between my limited concept of strategy and the lag my computer caused, I found the game pretty difficult.

That didn't stop me from playing though, and I managed to get pretty far in the campaign before I hit a difficult level I just couldn't get past.

Then came Command & Conquer: Red Alert. Still running on a very outdated computer, I managed to become pretty good at this game. It had a lot more options for defending your base, and not having to worry so much about defense I could concentrate on building up an army and taking it to the enemy. I tried the campaigns, but this game really had me hooked on skirmishes and just seeing if I could beat the computer.

Starcraft came next, and I got this pretty late, after the expansion had already been released. I finally had a computer that could handle it, and the fact that it had three factions just made it so much better. Plus they were very different from each other, and that meant you couldn't just win by having more units. I don't even want to think about how many hours I spent on that game, lets just say it was more than enough.

It was a while before I thought about playing another RTS game. Sure more came out, but I had a lot of other games to concentrate on and just sort of forgot about the genre.

That is, until Warcraft III came out. I managed to download it and beat the entire campaign within a couple weeks of its release. The only problem was I didn't have a valid CD-key to play online, so after beating it I sort of lost interest.

In the past couple years I decided I wanted to go back to those older games and go through the campaigns. The problem is, with all the new Windows versions, my old DOS games no longer run on my computer. Luckily Warcraft II: Battle.net Edition was released, solving my problem there, and also allowing online play. Along with finding a downloadable copy of Warcraft: Orcs and Humans, and a DOS emulator, I can play through the original wars, all the stuff I see mentioned in WoW but I never got to see.

Even more recently Command & Conquer: The First Decade was release, which included every game from the franchise that had been released up until that point. I managed to scoop that up and now I have a whole lot of games to get through before I'll be satisfied, although I'll probably burn out on it before I finish.

Right now I am looking at checking out the latest Command & Conquer 3, which has been out for a couple years, but still looks cool. I've heard some bad reviews about it, but I might get it anyway.

At the moment I am working my way through the campaign of the Warcraft II expansion and it's great. I love the simplicity, and I think as I progress through the games and the increasing level of complexity it won't come as such a shock as it would if I had just started with one of the new ones.

If you've never played any of these games you really should. They pretty much set the standard for RTS games, and are so much fun to play you'll get hooked even if you aren't that good.

The new Microsoft Ad

I think most geeks out there can agree that Seinfeld is one of the greatest sitcoms ever. Now he's doing commercials for Microsoft, and strange commercials at that. What does buying discount shoes have to do with a software company? Well lets look a little deeper.

The commercial basically revolves around Jerry Seinfeld seeing Bill Gates buying shoes at a discount shoe store. After some dialogue about churros, Gates decides on a pair of shoes, and how they become very comfortable as you break them in, even if they do fit tight at first.

Meanwhile a Mexican family sees the transaction and notes that they are the same shoes they wear. It ends with Jerry and Bill walking to their cars and Gates hinting at a computer made of cake.

What does it all mean? Well from what I can see, Microsoft is trying to market to everyone. Using the shoes as a metaphor for Vista, saying that it takes some getting used to before you become comfortable with it, just like a new pair of shoes.

Having the Mexican family comment on the shoes makes Microsoft (Gates) seem like just a normal person, who buys discount shoes just like the rest of us. They're trying to play off of Apple's ads that make Macs look like something cool people buy, and instead making Microsoft look like the way to go because they are good and affordable for everyone.

The computers made of cake thing is just hinting that Microsoft is still working on some cool stuff. I'm pretty sure making computers out of cake wouldn't be a good idea.

The only problem with this commercial is that Vista is still terrible. It doesn't take years to break in shoes, it takes a few weeks at most. I've had Vista for over a year now on my laptop and not only is it the probable cause for my hard drive dying, but it crashes pretty much daily.

My girlfriend wanted to use the laptop the other day, but she was sitting too far away for the power cord to reach. She asked me to unplug it, and I said it would probably be better if she just moved closer since it freezes half the time when I unplug it. Well she didn't wanna move, so I let her unplug it and sure enough, it froze up.

Did Service Pack 1 correct this problem? Nope. Has it corrected any of the other problems I've been having? Not really. I'm still trying to figure out how the company that made Windows XP, which runs so smoothly, managed to come out with such a troublesome operating system on their next attempt.

Will I get a Mac for my next computer? At this point it's looking like a yes. I don't base my choice of computers on commercials and what they tell me, I base it on performance, and right now Mac is in the lead. Of course an operating system made specifically to run on certain hardware is going to have less problems, but XP proved a conglomeration of parts can still run a good OS just fine.

Unless Microsoft manages to fix Vista, I'm gonna have to go with a Mac for my next computer. Now if only I had an extra $2000 to blow on a new computer...

New Apple device rumors

As has happened in the past couple years, it is expected that Apple will be introducing new iPods and MacBooks in September. What I'm counting on is a higher capacity iPod touch. Last year I got one of the brand new iPod classics, mostly because I have a lot of music and the touch has a relatively low capacity in comparison.

I've heard mention of a redesigned nano, and probably a revamped touch which will be cheaper than the current one, but in only a few places have I seen mention of a higher capacity touch.

What everyone is speculating about is a new MacBook. So far it is mostly a more affordable version, but there are those who are talking about a touch screen laptop. It does sound like a cool idea at first, but if you think about it, I don't think it would be all that convenient.

First, we sit close enough to computer screens already, why force users to sit close enough to touch it? I know my eyes get tired enough having to stare and a screen all day, I don't want to be forced to be right up against it in order to use the computer.

Also, having to lift your hand to touch the screen would not be very comfortable. Using a mouse can make your wrist sore as it is, but making your whole arm sore after a day of work seems like a bad idea.

The only way to make this work would be for Apple to make touch screen computers pretty much the same as the ones that are already out there. They would need to make the screen flip around and be more like a notepad so touching the screen would be more like writing on a piece of paper, but then the keyboard can't be used anymore if it folds down on itself, so they would need some way to make that accessible as well or it wouldn't be practical for work applications, which causes the problem of having the screen not upright when you are typing and thus hard to see.

Apple seems to want to cater to everyone, not just a little niche like those other notepad computers are made for. A touch screen on a computer seems like a really cool idea, and if you've ever played with an iPhone it would seem an obvious next step, but there are a lot of hurdles to jump to get it to the point that it would be practical for everyone. A lower price MacBook seems likely, but a touch screen doesn't seem the way to go on anything bigger than an iPod or iPhone just yet.

Bad Drivers

When I first started driving, my mom gave me the best advice. She said , "Assume everyone else on the road is an idiot, that way if they do something stupid it won't surprise you."

I still assume this every time I drive. Every time I pass by a driveway I am prepared for the car sitting there to pull out right in front of me, I never drive directly next to anyone when there are two or more lanes, mainly so I have somewhere to go if something happens in front of me, but also so they don't forget to look and try to change lanes and hit me.

Despite being cautious about all this it still astounds me how bad people can be at driving. Even some driving rules that I always thought were common knowledge are unknown to many drivers. Do you know how many people don't know how to determine right-of-way at a stop sign? Even worse, I can't tell you how many times cross traffic making a turn, with no stop sign, has stopped to let me go instead even though I do have a stop sign. I know you're trying to be nice and all, but it's taking more time trying to decide who will go first than it would have taken if you had just gone ahead and made that turn and I had waited.

I was driving the other day on my way home from work. To turn in to my apartment complex I have to make a left turn at a stop light. Simple enough, and when I come up to the intersection the left turn light is red so I stop, and all is going as it should be. Traffic going straight through the intersection has the green light, and since when I pulled up to the line my car activated the sensor the light for oncoming traffic turns red a little later and now it's my turn to go. I noticed a few cars coming the other direction that are turning into the complex as well, only they are making a right turn obviously because they are coming from the other direction. Well now they have a red light, so I am making my turn, but when I get halfway across the intersection I see another car making the right turn, only they didn't stop, didn't even bother to look until they were halfway through it and then saw that I was turning and stopped abruptly. I managed to catch the look on the driver's face as I drove past, as I had the right-of-way, and she looked very surprised and confused. I assume the look on my face was a look of 'what the hell are you doing?'

A few days later I was driving with my girlfriend, making the same turn, and mentioned the incident to her and how I saw people make those right turns on red lights all the time without stopping, although that was the first time they almost hit me while doing it. She said a lot of people don't know you have to stop... Wait, what?! I thought they just didn't feel like stopping, just like we all speed even though we know we're not supposed to, but are you telling me that a rule of the road that should be common knowledge to everybody is unknown to so many people? Did you know that rule? Basically a right turn at a stop light is treated like pulling up to a stop sign. You have to come to a complete stop before you can continue on to make the turn. She even mentioned a few people she knew that had never heard of that rule, and while I was contemplating just how cautious I needed to be while driving, I realized that maybe I don't assume people are stupid enough.

Don't even get me started on freeway on-ramps. If you aren't up to speed with people on the freeway by the time you merge on, you're doing something wrong. So that lady that was doing 40 the other day when I was behind her on the on-ramp, don't think I was being an asshole when I passed you once we got on and gave you a look, I just really don't want to be hit from behind by other cars on the freeway because you don't know how to accelerate correctly.

Rock Band Blues

I'm sure by now you've all heard about the game Rock Band, the one where you can play videogame instruments along with the songs in the game including guitar, bass, drums, and vocals. I used to have it, then my house was broken into and they stole it, along with other things. It's easily replaced, and normally I would just got pick up another copy, but a few weeks ago they announced that Rock Band 2 would be released in September, and that they would have much better instrument peripherals along with it, as well as being able to transfer your songs to it from the old one. This puts me in a bit of a dilemma. I could buy the game again now and when the new one comes out just buy the disk and not bother with the instruments, or I could wait for the new one and buy the bundle that comes with the newer, upgraded versions of the instruments, which not only look better, but work better too.

At this point, since the release is less than 2 months away I have pretty much decided to wait it out and buy the new one while buying the disk for the first one to transfer the songs over. But wait, there's more. Another company (ION) is also releasing a much higher quality drumset around the same time the new one comes out and it looks awesome. Not only that, it will be compatible with a real electronic drum brain so you can switch out the Xbox360 portion and use it as a real drumset, which is even more awesome.

I guess it's not so much a dilemma anymore because I have already decided. I will buy the new game disk, the old disk, the ION drumset, and hope the other new instrument peripherals are available at release. It won't be a total disappointment if I have to wait for the other instruments though as I pretty much play the game for the drums, but part of the fun of the game is being able to play with other people so I want that option available to me.

I guess I never realized how much I missed the game until I started listening to the radio again and was hearing all those songs I had played along with getting played. Now I have to change the station when that happens because it starts making me depressed that I can't go home and start jamming away to the song anymore, and won't be able to for a couple months still. I can't wait for Rock Band 2 to get here.

The hybrid SUVs

Up until recently I thought the idea of a hybrid SUV was sort of silly, even stupid. Sure you get better gas mileage, but compared to the close to 40 mpg that the hybrid sedans are getting, you only get about 25-27 mpg in the SUV. I have a truck right now that gets about the same gas mileage as that, although it's a 4 cylinder, but I've loaded it up pretty good and can still get up to speed on the freeway. It was my thinking that we need to get off the big SUVs altogether and focus on smaller, more efficient cars.

I've been contemplating getting a new car for a while, and was pretty set on a truck, but while I have been trying to save up to get one, my house got robbed and I ended up having to spend the money I saved replacing what I had lost in the robbery. This gave me some more time to think about what I was looking for and not just finding a replacement for my old truck, which I love, but I'm finding I don't use it as a truck enough to justify getting another one. I have been wanting to get something with 4-wheel drive because I take trips up to the snow during the winter and don't want to have to rely on other people getting me there anymore. This severely limites my options to trucks, SUVs, and a very small selection of AWD wagons (like Subaru has). Most of these cars also come with at least V6 engines standard, and that pretty much automatically means it will be getting worse gas mileage.

I was recently talking about this with some friends and it was at that point when someone suggested I take a look at hybrid SUVs. I hadn't even thought of it until that point, and I was still a little skeptical, but I figured I'd give it a shot and look into it. After looking at some of the options that are out there, and there aren't many, I'm starting to think this would be a great fit for me. I don't drive a lot, but with the gas prices the way they are, and not likely to go back down, I think I could pay a little more now and save a lot more in the long run. The problem is there are a very limited number of hybrid SUVs available, and I would really like to have more options to choose from.

As it stands, I am really looking at the Toyota Highlander Hybrid. I have a Toyota right now and have had very little trouble with it as compared to the stories I have heard about other people and their car troubles. I really trust that buying another Toyota would provide me with a long lasting car that I can rely on for a long time. I had hoped to find Honda coming out with a hybrid SUV as well, but while there are rumors, there is nothing concrete saying that they will have them available anytime soon. What I would have really liked to see one of the smaller SUV models in hybrid form. While the Highlander isn't huge, it's still bigger than what I think I actually need, but there's also no guarantee that waiting will be of any help as they may not bother making hybrid versions of the smaller SUVs. I still have some saving to do before I will be ready to make the commitment, but unless something else comes up in the near future, it's looking like the Highlander will be the way to go.