J Marcus Daily

Off the air

2006-12-18T15:00:00.000-08:00

There will be no updates to this blog until January 22, 2007. I apologize for the lack of content but it cannot be avoided. I look forward to my return after a much-needed rest. 2007 promises to be a great year and one where I will make a more concerted effort to provide a more robust publishing schedule in the months to come. Enjoy the holidays and may you and yours be well and happy in this coming New Year.

Holiday 2006

2006-11-27T15:02:00.000-08:00

The holiday season has officially begun. With the coming of turkey and pumpkin pie to our tables and love handles Black Friday began the first of the holiday deals. People came out in droves to check out the loss leaders from the major retailers-some buyers, many shoppers. For my electronics habit, I was out sampling the electronics deals and steals bright and early. Best Buy was a madhouse. Everywhere else was manageable. It was fun watching people drool over the latest HDTV’s and $2.99 DVD’s. Some prices were so low it’ll be hard to pay regular prices. Call of Duty 2 for $19.99 one day and then back up to $39.99 the next. Some people try to avoid the malls and stores on the day after Thanksgiving. I make it an event.

Technovations has all the latest information on Black Friday deals, their successes and failures, and what this means for the rest of the holiday buying season in consumer electronics. With quick reviews on the Xbox 360 peripheral add-on HD-DVD drive and the Yamaha YT-800 single speaker surround sound powerhouse I’ve been busy updating the sites.

I finally got a chance to see Casino Royale. (Anyone with kids knows how much of a challenge it can be to see a movie while it’s still in theaters.) Man was it good. I hate being so brazen about it being so good tending as it does to ramp up peoples expectations. There are certainly things that could’ve been better, but it is clearly the best Bond film of my generation. Well, clearly since 1978 and perhaps even since Sean Connery left the franchise. I’ll leave the rest of my opinions for the review.

In coming weeks I plan on having quite a lot of fun with holiday parties, ads, and preparing for the upcoming January vacation to Orlando. I’m sure I’ll have more to say on this and many other things as the days click by.

Bits and Bytes- Quick News with no use

2006-09-22T14:06:00.000-07:00

Intel has announced the end of an era, the Pentium 4 era that is. By Q3 of 2007 Intel expects to end production of the Pentium 4 architecture in favor if it’s new top of the line chip the Core 2 Duo. As Intel looks to clear out inventory after Christmas expect to see chips using the outdated Netburst architecture showing up in the bargain bin. Estimates of price drops of nearly $100 are expected bringing the price into the $70 range. The budget Celeron chip has a little more life left in it as production will continue until early 2008.

Holy Grail or Sexual Satisfaction

Having absolutely nothing to do with technology this one begs to be commented upon. According to Reuters a disproportionate number of Britons are prepared to give up sex in exchange for a long life, specifically to life to a hundred years old. (60%) Not surprisingly was the number of women willing to make the sacrifice far outweighed that of men. (48 percent compared to 31 percent of the men in the survey). Just another survey commissioned by health care providers attempting to get a handle on the complex issues of aging. As people are living longer and many are faced with serious decisions regarding healthcare and retirement, it’s good to know there are still these surveys to shine a light on what we already know. Most men would trade just about anything, even an extra day of life to get just a little more nooky.

Price cut for Playstation 3-

Falling under the weight of outside pressure Sony has dropped the price of its forthcoming Playstation 3 making the 20 GB version $430 (US) when it is released for sale this November 11^th. Now for the bad news. It only applies to their loyal Sony customers in Japan. These price cuts do not apply to the US or the European launches. While American buyers are sure to scream at this price discrimination, European buyers have even more to balk, as they have to wait until next year for their launch. Due to delays in production, Sony has been forced to push the European launch to early 2007.

Newly added original Xbox titles for the 360

2006-08-18T14:59:00.000-07:00

Original Xbox compatible titles for the Xbox 360---Newly added as of August 2006

Aggressive Inline

All-Star Baseball 2003 updated

All-Star Baseball 2005

Aquaman: Battle of Atlantis

Burnout 3: Takedown

Call of Cthulu: Dark Corners of the Earth Updated

Catwoman

Counter-Strike

Crash Nitro Kart 2 Updated

Dead to Rights

Digimon Rumble Arena 2 Updated

ESPN Major League Baseball

Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly Director’s Cut

Ford vs. Chevy Updated

Freaky Flyers

Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows

Half-Life 2 Updated

IndyCar Series 2005

Kabuki Warriors Updated

LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy

Links 2004

Magatama Updated

Maximum Chase

Mortal Kombat Deception Updated

MTX: Mototrax

MX vs. ATV Unleashed

Namco Museum 50^th Anniversary Arcade Collection

Outlaw Tennis

Over the Hedge

Richard Burns Rally

Rogue Trooper

Serious Sam

Shincho Mahjong

Sid Meier’s Pirates

Smashing Drive

Sneakers 5 Updated

Spy Hunter: Nowhere to Run

Taz Wanted

The Incredibles: Rise of the Underminer Updated

The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning

The Suffering

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Island Thunder

Torino 2006 Winter Olympics

Trigger Man

True Crime:Streets of LA

Vietcong: Purple Haze

Wrath Unleashed

X2 Wolverine’s Revenge

For a complete list of titles compatible on the Xbox 360 head to Xbox.com

2006-08-16T14:43:00.000-07:00

PC purchase remorse

Regularly I receive phone calls asking, “Did I get a good deal on this computer?”. After hearing the specs they usually ask how much I think it cost them. Only because I follow such things, I usually pick the price within $50 to $100. The disappointment on the other end of the phone is nearly heartbreaking. People don’t like to think they didn’t receive a good deal and there is nothing worse then a person picking the price you paid or thinking it should’ve been lower. Computers, in my estimation require a practical understanding for consumers that used to be needed only for cars, homes, and large appliances.

The minute you drive it off the lot the value drops 10%. The same applies to computers when you crack open that box and power it up. It not only loses value PC’s are outdated the minute it walks out the door. (Actually, they are outdated before they hit the store shelves.) To find value in this purchase, and not feel like a sucker you have to walk into the purchase with a realistic set of expectations. It isn’t about speed of the processor, the size of the hard drive or how many GB of RAM is loaded into it. Those are fun specs for geeks. For the average user it only matters if it runs the programs you need.

Again, for the average buyer computers need to be about whether it fills the need in your household. Can it do all the things you expect of it? And frankly speaking, most people are buying much more computer then they need. Even the aspects of upgrading are ludicrous for most people who will buy a completely new machine before they can gain any benefits from upgrades.

I’ve come up with a handy buyers guide for computers. If you stick to these few principles, you should have the least amount of buyer’s remorse at the end of the day.

At the end of the day the only way to make sure you got a good deal on your recent computer purchase is to do your research, know what you need, and keep realistic expectations. Then once you’ve bought it, quite looking at the ads and don’t tell anyone your specs. If someone asks, say, ‘it’s paid for and it does everything I could ask of it.’ When buying a PC that’s the best anyone can say.

2006-08-15T14:40:00.000-07:00

Gadgets

There are more bad products out there than good. My mission to find those products worthwhile and useful in the right hands is tireless. However, once and a while I come across something that really makes me scratch my head. --Because the idea is so stupid or the execution seems like it was completed by monkeys-- there are some so bad I just can’t keep my mouth shut.

Take the Drive Alert Master II. Designed to wake up sleepy drivers as they nod off at the wheel this simple device doesn’t even sound as if it will do the trick. Sure, a loud noise in the ear will wake you up, for a second. No better than loud static on the radio, or rolling the windows down and pumping up the AC. The problem is drivers fall asleep at the wheel because they are tired. No device is going to fix that. Once a person realizes they are too tired to drive, they need to pull over. And again, this thing won’t solve that.

Save your 24.95 and pick up another couple of espressos.

http://www.gadgetuniverse.com/product_detail.asp?SRC=25EM060801&rsource=EMAIL&keywd=25EM060801&SKU=TE+332+S

Here’s one from the Shaper Image with an idea that I love. Reality on the other hand. -Spion™ Orbitor™ Electronic Listening Device. A spy movie listening dish with earphones and the ability to record up to 120 seconds of sound from as far away as 300’. Point it at the neighbors across the street and listen as they argue their way into divorce court. The problem being this thing doesn’t work. You can hear sounds from across the room. However, it has a terrible time distinguishing between ambient sound and someone speaking. The clarity is nowhere what it should be for $60. The distance is nowhere near the 300’, at least not with any true distinguishing of sounds. I wanted to like this thing. It left me disappointed. Best thing to do-Skip it. If you can’t then test one out in a Sharper Image store.

http://www.sharperimage.com/us/en/catalog/product/sku__AR006

2006-08-14T14:38:00.000-07:00

Circuit City to break the law, for a price. They will convert your DVD’s for use on your IPOD for $10 a pop. For years, low-tech hackers have had access to inexpensive tools for cracking the encryption for DVD burning. What makes this interesting is it is the first time a major company has been willing flagrantly to flout the law. Odds are Circuit City will be discontinuing this service as soon as they receive a cease and desist order from the MPAA or the studios. It would be strange for a big company to risk losing their rights to sell DVD’s because of violating the Digital Millennia Act.

There has been some wiggle room on the legality of this issue with past legislation allowing fair use for owners to make a single copy of a movie. Where it comes to odds is with the DMAA’s forbidding of breaking the copy-protection encryption on any digital media. Of course, all this leads us once again into the gigantic issue at the heart of digital ownership in the 21^st century. (A debate we won’t get into for the sake of this writers sanity.)

While this service by Circuit City isn’t groundbreaking it will make an interesting story to watch unfold. And while many applaud Circuit City’s willingness to break the law to make a buck, most are still left wondering why anyone would spend $10 to do what they could do at home for free.

Tech Blurb

2006-08-10T14:58:00.000-07:00

Following the tech blurbs

-New electric car hits 130 MPH-The Tesla Roadster is Silicon Valley’s attempt to make an electric car cool. A sophisticated attempt to challenge Ferrari, Porsche, and Lamborghini with a electric car that goes 0 to 60-mph in four seconds. And it does it silently. The stealthy factor may well save this electric vehicle, if it can find buyers that are looking for speed without the racecar sound. Of course, you could just pump your favorite motor sound though the sound system if you have to hear the power under the hood. Aside from its impressive specs Tesla will still have to succeed where GM and other have failed-popularizing electric automobiles. For now, this is one to watch. It’ll be interesting to see if they can make any headway in an American industry known for its gas guzzling, loud, and large vehicles.

Acer Aspire 9800-quick review

2006-08-09T20:28:00.000-07:00

Acer Aspire 9800

The 2.16 GHz Intel Core Duo Processor of the Acer Aspire 9800 gives it healthy amount of power for the laptop category. However, with a 20-inch screen and more than 17 lbs. of heft it sits in the desktop replacement category rather firmly. Add to that the manufacturer’s estimate of 1.5 hours of battery life and you have a laptop that’s screaming for a desktop and an outlet. By desktop replacement standards, the 9800 is a bit underwhelming. While boasting 2 GB of Ram, a PCI Express Chipset and a NVIDIA GeForce Go 7300 graphics card it comes in at a whopping $2650 (average current price on-line). There are a number of other laptops in this price range that can do the job better then the Aspire 9800. Of course its main selling point is the 20-inch screen coupled with it’s HD-DVD drive. (One of only two models currently supporting the new format.) The problem being at its weight and size you won’t be packing it around in any standard laptop bag. If having a portable movie system is your bag then you’re better off either with a smaller laptop or a portable DVD player to hook into a standalone monitor. It’ll cost you less and fit you’re needs better.

What’s good: Big screen, HD-DVD (If you care.), and decent hardware for multimedia use.

What’s bad: Gargantuan size and weight, almost nil-battery life, and a high price tag for a desktop replacement that doesn’t offer many custom configurations from the manufacturer.

Bottom line: If you’re looking at the Acer Aspire 9800 it’s probably because you’ve taken size and the like into mind. As such, it’s a fine desktop replacement if multimedia is your overriding concern and you don’t want to look at cheaper alternatives. Otherwise, there are a lot of other fish in the sea worth spending a few grand on.

Industry first for MI:3 release

2006-08-08T14:51:00.000-07:00

On the High Definition news front, Paramount is expect to announce an industry first release of MI: 3 in three formats, traditional DVD, Blue-ray and HD. This is an important milestone in these early days of High Definition disks coming to market. Still, we are a long way from either format declaring a winner. Especially when most analysts are predicting there will be no clear winner rather a merging of these two formats.

What is clear is that those with HD televisions are scrambling for HD content. While the price of these early HD players are astronomical forcing most casual users to wait, many people don’t even realize they aren’t getting the most out of their new set top television. There are a large majority of HD television owners who don’t even realize they are not watching HD unless they are hooked up to an HD signal.

From the sidelines the HD format wars are interesting to watch. Clearly it’s too early to put your money on any of these formats until it matures. Unless you’re an early adopter who can afford instant obsolescence.

No matter how spectacular the MI:3 High Definition picture looks it won’t make up for a lackluster film. MI:3 was clearly not a good enough movie to get most of us excited about HD. Maybe the release of Superman Returns or Aliens, but surly not Mission Impossible 3

Roadwarrior Slingbox--for the rest ---avoid the hype

2006-08-07T14:37:00.000-07:00

Sling Media Slingbox

What a great idea. Hook the Slingbox up to your cable or satellite box and watch television while on the road. By using a high-speed broadband connection from your hotel, or wherever, you can watch your Tivo shows or anything stored on your media PC. For those who spend more days of the year on the road then at home this is a great concept. The rest of us?

Try as I might I can’t find a use for this thing, for most people. The use of this technology is conditional on a number of factors. A fast broadband connection being the most important. And you have to have one on both ends, both where the Slingbox is connected and wherever you view it on the road. Something many people will find a challenge unless they are shelling out a lot of money for wireless broadband through the phone or laptop.

Still, I’m left with a problem finding value in this device for most people. Again, it’s a nice idea but one that I believe for most consumers doesn’t have a lot of practical use. Sure, it could be used to bring your recorded content to a spare room or on your back porch. However, there are many other devices specifically made for use in home.

Without reviewing this device by using it, I question the need for it for the average consumer. Don’t let the hype of what this thing can do force you into buying another piece of technology that sounds great but in reality can’t be integrated into your life.

Like I said, I’m excited by the Slingbox as well, and nearly fell into the trap. Make sure you really explore the market before buying one of these or I suspect you’ll be burdened by overwhelming buyer’s remorse.

Upgrade that Cell phone, or else!

2006-08-03T12:29:00.000-07:00

Come September more than four million Cingular Wireless subscribers will be forced to pay a $5 surcharge for using older non-GSM phones. While 92% of Cingular’s customers already have a GSM phone those still using one of the two older technologies are being urged to convert to newer handsets. This move, which will bring in an added 23.5 million a month in revenue to the company, is prompted by a FCC provision that cell phone carriers provide analog service until early 2008 so long as a company still has customers using the service.

This adds one more in a long list of added charges wireless customers are seeing on their monthly bills. These charges coupled with an array of government taxes add an estimated 50% to the advertised rate of most wireless companies. While the cost of wireless service continues to climb, so do the number of users. For all the complaints as to the cost there are more than 110 million subscribers to Verizon and Cingular Wireless services, the top two wireless providers.

Clearly its big business for telecommunications companies. So, why does it still cost so much to have a cell phone and a home phone. While the services have increased over the years the cost of having internet service, phone service and wireless have gone up well beyond the cost attributed to inflation.

Burning up in bed- Targus Notebook Chill Mat

2006-08-02T11:56:00.000-07:00

Targus Notebook Chill Mat

-As a long time skeptic of these devices, I’ve been reluctant to add anything to the weight of my laptop. After many a night with singed leg hairs from working with the laptop in bed, I thought I’d try it, at least as a buffer between my skin and the volcanic heat emanating from the laptop undercarriage. Much to my surprise, this laptop cooler has worked remarkably well. The laptop has been running considerably cooler. The twin fans are quiet enough to use in bed with only the occasional squeaking.

The model above this one had additional two-usb ports. A nice idea and one that should be included in every one of these devices. I however, was unwilling to pay double the price just for the added convenience. I already own a four port USB hub that I’ve strapped onto the notebook chiller.

The only annoying part is the cord. While most consumer electronics seem to skimp on the length of cords, this one is exceptionally long for a device that is designed to be with the laptop. (My solution was to use electrical tape to attach it to the edge of the coolers frame. And while it is an additional drain on my laptop battery, there hasn’t been any notable difference in the life of the battery charge.

However, unscientific I almost believe the battery charge has been extended by this device rather than shortening it. I’ll have to conduct a test and do some research on if this is at all possible or just my imagination.

Final word: I’m still skeptical of the need for any of the fancier and expensive versions of the notebook chiller. I would say this Targus model is worth the $19.99 price tag if for no other reason than to avoid bedtime burns.

Passwords

2006-08-01T11:52:00.000-07:00

Your mother has one. Your sister has one. Your kid has one. The neighbor next door has one. You guessed it, a password. Statistically speaking you’re likely to have at least five different passwords. From bank accounts to Gmail there are passwords for everything these days. Worse yet, most of them have different password requirement. Four to eight alphanumeric characters, pin numbers, mother’s maiden name and so on and on.

The sad part is these passwords are really only keeping out the casual snoop. True hackers and bonafide thieves have enough tools at their disposal to crack nearly any password every day users utilize. Mostly because users don’t pick the most secure passwords. They pick the most convenient.

I’ve been guilty of it. With so many accounts out there that require passwords it’s difficult to keep up with them all. Let alone typing them into the computer every time you use such and such service. Convenience wins out. And truth be known, most of the time it doesn’t really matter. Odds are you aren’t important enough for any one to hack your Gmail account or your Yahoo cribbage scores.

The problem is most people use the same password for their low priority accounts as they do for their wireless router or online bank account. Here, I think we should all agree is the place where convenience cannot win out over the need for security. The damage that can be done on this level by not only thieves but hackers looking to use your computer, ISP and identity is staggering.

A kid parked out in front of your house can hijack your wireless signal and download a few thousand MP3’s in a couple of hours. All the while it’ll be you the MPAA comes after. When their lawyers subpoena your ISP on where all that supposed illegal traffic came from it’s your address that will pop up. You, not the war driver (hacker who drives from wireless to wireless) will be in court ponying up your kid’s college fund.

Now that you’re convinced you need a stronger password, how do you come up with one. There are a number of ways. The best is to come up with something that you’ll remember while still maintaining a high level of security. Password cracking programs work easily with nearly any alphanumeric combination. Anything is crackable. The point is to make yours enough of a pain as to take the hacker’s computer such a long time as to not be worthwhile, so he’ll move on to someone else.

Use the password you currently have but replace the numbers with the symbols corresponding on your keyboard. Hit the shift key and replace 1 with a ! and 2 with a @ and so on and so forth.

For the word portion of your password use the same word but when you type it move 2 places down the ABC’s. So if BOB is your password it becomes DQD. Thus, slowing down those cracks that rely on recognizable words from the dictionary and language databases.

With any luck this should be easy to remember and still foil most casual hackers looking to break into your computers and bank accounts. If you’re still worried, there are even more high level encryption programs you can pick up. They’ll cost you money and ease of use but you’ll be even safer. In the end, it’s up to you.

Miami Vice Review

2006-07-31T11:42:00.000-07:00

Miami Vice

What a disappointment.

From the director of Heat and Collateral, Michael Mann gives us a Miami Vice that is utterly underwhelming. The story is convoluted and highlights the bad guys and girl, rather than on the two main characters Crocket and Tubbs. The problem with this movie revolves around the script and work done in the editing room. This is an hour and a half drama with nearly 45 minutes of sex scenes. Oh, and 15 minutes of action thrown in at the end.

While Colin Farrell as Crocket isn’t particularly memorable, he isn’t bad. There is intensity and a coolness factor lacking in his portrayal of Sonny. While Jamie Foxx is more enjoyable to watch as Tubbs and in many ways steals the show, he isn’t given much to do to stand out.

There are only a few reasons to watch this movie. Unique use of 50 caliber sniper rifles makes for an interesting assassination scene. The High Definition camera work is superb. There are crystal clear shots of a gulf-stream jet banking through the clouds with a beauty and splendor rarely caught on film. This may sound a little over the top but it is a thing of beauty in a film with few merits. Along with shots of nighttime Miami and ultra-cool speedboats cutting through the waters between Florida and Cuba.

The final gun battle is executed with an attention to detail only possible for someone of Michael Mann’s caliber of filmmaking. Here is where he shines and finally makes good on what is nearly a wasted couple of hours. He knows where the camera needs to be to catch the right action. The automatic weapons fire is some of the most realistic sounding ever heard in a movie. Oh, and did I mention the 50 caliber rifles blowing apart everything it touches.

The action/violence world of movies has nearly done it all. To see something that feels fresh and still capable of holding the audiences attention is a rare thing indeed.

My prediction is this will be a fine movie to watch on DVD. Longer running times and boredom doesn’t quite set in the same way when in the comfort of your own home. Just stay clear of this one in the theaters.

Deals for students- Check out before they're gone

2006-07-28T11:47:00.000-07:00

Being a consumer electronics reviewer can be great fun when you’re playing with innovative and exciting new products. The only problem is not everything that comes across my desk fits the bill. Most are mediocre and more than a few are just plain horrible. There is no end to the number of new products hitting store shelves on any given day. Looking at my e-mail in-box shows a plethora of companies begging for attention and reviews. There is no way I can review it all, but I do make a good show of it. Here are a few pieces sitting in my e-mail box waiting to get a little attention.

With back-to-school season ramping up advertisers are putting a lot of products for the high school and college kid front and center.

Logitech X-230 - PC Multimedia Speaker System 2.1

Has decent sound for the price. Logitech is a good company that makes quality products with only a few exceptions.

Buy.com was offering this at 19.95 but has since sold out. A good price for a decent two-speaker system, perfect for the college kid where space is a premium and isn’t worried about paying top dollar for overrated speakers. Most speaker systems for computers aren’t that great. With little difference between those costing $100 and up from their low price competitors. If you don’t know about wattage, decibels, or ohms don’t bother paying more than $40 for a these speaker packages. It’s a waste of money.

Again, sound is important but if you don’t own a top of the line sound card paying a lot for computer speakers is insane.

Lexmark X2350 All-In-One Printer, Scanner, Copier

All in ones have been all the rage for some time now. For those working in cramped quarters an all-in-one is the only option. This Lexmark is currently on sale from Walmart for $39.88 with an added bonus of shipping for less than a buck. With only one printer cartridge to replace the busy student won’t be spending precious studying or partying time walking the aisles of Staples searching for printer ink. The scanner is decent for it’s price class providing all the features students should require. Though at only 15 ppm anyone doing intensive printing, more than a few hundred pages a day should pick up one of the cheap sub-$100 laser printers.

Kingston 1GB USB 2.0 DataTraveler - DTI/1GBKR

Here’s another good deal from Buy.com. As long as you don’t mind rebates, this 1GB USB flash drive is a steal at $17.95. For this price, typically, we have to look at off brand memory but prices have been falling and Kingston is a decent company. Every student needs a flash drive. For college students it’s a non-negotiable.

Xbox 360 controller deals

2006-07-27T12:12:00.000-07:00

Xbox 360 Wireless Controller

With a search of major online and brick and mortar stores the two lowest prices come from Overstock.com and Buy.com. With a low shipping price from Overstock.com the total comes to 44.35 while Buy.com is 39.99 with free shipping. Both are good deals. Pick them up before the sale is over.

If you own a 360 the wireless controller is the only way to go. Far superior to any branded or off brand Xbox controller of the past, the official Microsoft wireless controller is an all around great product. Simple to use the 360 has built in controls for up to four wireless controllers. They have no signal issues and connect quickly. The crew from Redmond also allowed the controllers to shut down and power up the console. A much-needed upgrade from the original Xbox.

Sound like I’m a fan. That’s because I am. After years of testing nearly every controller on the market for the Xbox it’s nice to see Microsoft making a good controller. It isn’t a bad price for a good controller unless you’re trying to buy enough for your friends to play as well. At the regular retail price that’s makes playing with your friends a couple hundred dollar proposition.

Still by purchasing the additional plug and play rechargeable battery solution, it’ll pay for itself in just under 5 years. Just in time for the next consoles to hit the market.

HDTV prices continue to fall

2006-07-13T10:31:00.000-07:00

One particular typical in consumer electronics is-- the moment you buy an item you’ll find it for less right after the price match deadline ends at the particular store from which you purchased.

Right now, for televisions that typical is made all the more potent. High Definition television prices have been dropping like mad. Just when you think they can’t fall any farther, they do. This won’t last forever. Soon, the market will fall in-line with consumers. Prices won’t go up but they won’t keep falling because of new products coming to market. Big innovations will slow. The glut of newcomer TV manufactures will dwindle.

I can’t say this is the time to buy a T.V. There are clearly better TV’s on the horizon. Worth waiting for? I really don’t think so. Once you’ve hit the 1080P HD level- there isn’t much left to improve upon. The next step is more features. Better looking pictures through improved black levels and contrast ratios. Cable-card and satellite built in-hook ups, and so on and so forth.

For the casual buyer, this is the time to buy. Besides these T.V aren’t rated to last forever like the one your family owned when you were a kid. Lamp life is an important factor for a number of these TV’s; a spec savvy customers have begun paying attention of late.

Just don’t be suckers. Do your homework? Know what you want before you shop. Make sure what the correct size T.V is for your viewing area. Pay attention to little things if you plan to put it in a bedroom. Such as does it have a bright blue light on the front of it that stays lit when the T.V is not turned on? (There are a few of these offenders. And you’ll be rightfully pissed when you get home and try to go to bed with these blue-eyed Cyclops staring back at you.)

-Listen to salespeople but never trust they have all the facts. Look up the specs on the T.V. Read reviews from the experts and more importantly from people who actually own the T.V.

Then don’t over think it to death. Remember this is supposed to be a fun purchase. It’s an exciting new world for home entertainment.

Such potential in the Fry's brand

2006-07-12T15:32:00.000-07:00

I’m addicted to looking at electronics stores I’ve shopped all the majors and stop in any of the minors that I run across. I’m a regular fixture in Best Buy, Circuit City and Fry’s; not to mention CompUSA, Office Max and Staples. Even Costco electronics department gets a once over from me every couple of weeks. So, why is it I love Fry’s but dislike my local Fry’s ever-so-much.

There seems to be a major difference in which Fry’s you visit. In San Diego California I’ve visited a couple that are pristine works of art. The building is immaculate, the aisle makes sense, and there is great customer service.

The one down the street from my house in Wilsonville, OR is converted from a now defunct electronics warehouse. If it weren’t for the name outside you’d never guess it was at all related to the rest of the Fry’s brand. It is plain. Ordinary. I dare say messy looking. The rhyme and reason to the merchandising is non-existent. (An observation from a long time shopper at this store. Anyone not a regular customer must be at a tremendous disadvantage.) Entire product lines are removed from their home to fill endcap-displays. And if you ask one of the myriad salespeople (who always appear to busy to be bothered with any mere mortal) they haven’t a clue where the product has been moved.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a fan of Fry’s. They have the most potential as an electronics brand to make good on their promises to consumers shopping for electronics. Best Buy never will. Circuit City doesn’t even try. And so on. However, this eyesore in the company must not be a lone mistake in their chain. So why do they tolerate such a ridiculous abstraction of their company model?

Fry’s is one of the few electronic stores where you can actually find nearly every type of electronics and gadget known. (Okay, not quite but their selection is superior to anything you’ll find in any of the other giants of the industry.) If only they could see how close, they are to becoming the ideal for consumer electronics shoppers. A touch of greatness you’ll see if you visit a couple of the stores I’ve seen in California. If those were, the rule rather than the exception there would be no real competition left for this retail mega-chain.

American Home Shield

2006-07-10T17:02:00.000-07:00

American Home Shield- With a recent plumbing and appliance problem I sent in a request for service with AHS. Sending one by website and the other by phone, the service stated within four hours a contractor would contact us. The contractor for the dishwasher called in time and more than 8 hours later the plumber still hasn’t made contact. At face value this makes the website portion faster. Of course this isn’t a full proof method as it relys on reliance the contractor will contact us in time. Regardless, they are only at 50% compliance with contacting to set up an appointment. Being it is now after 5pm it looks like we will finish the day with a dishwasher and kitchen sink still not in working condition and no appointment scheduled to take care of the problem.

Note: the appliance contractor said they wouldn’t schedule an appointment until a plumber solved the water issue coming into the kitchen.

For now, we will be eating off paper plates and plastic silverware.

Crap-Crap-Crap Tech in Spring/Summer 2006

2006-07-10T15:49:00.000-07:00

Spring and early summer tends to be bit lackluster in the technology department. Consumers and technology pundits alike tend to have little to inspire them in the second quarter. Everyone is out enjoying their boats and barbeques since there is little to keep them indoors at this time of the year. Other than rehash all the cool stuff we are waiting for in the coming months, let’s review some of the crap from this year so far. Okay, so I don’t have enough room to go over all of the crap instead I’ll concentrate on some of the items that were underwhelming or should’ve been better than it turned out.

-Unexciting Format War

Long gone are the glory days of format wars. When titans of industry fight for consumer dominance with conflicting proprietary products. Sony seems always to be in the center of the arena- this time is no different. Except for the lack of excitement, even with early adopters. There are distinct camps in this war, Blu-ray and HD-DVD. Each is supported by entertainment and technology companies.

There is clearly defined difference between the two. However, at the end of the day consumers don’t care enough to make a difference. Few seem to notice their new HD televisions lacks HD content. So, these releases are only for early adopters who are willing to pay excessively and who care about the quality of what they watch. Something average consumers have again and again shown to the negative. Ease of use will always win out over quality. (MP3’s anyone.) And with the dual format VHS/DVD players on the market most consumers know it is only a matter of time before a 3^rd party vendor releases a machine with both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. That is if both formats survive long enough to matter. It’s a huge case of hurry up and wait since as HD sets penetrate the market eventually consumers will be wondering where to find HD movies. Until then be prepared to be underwhelmed by this lackluster fight.

There are those detractors who say consumers will be reluctant to convert their DVD libraries to the next gen-HD after already going from VHS to DVD. While this conversion may not come at the brisk pace with which DVD took over the video world, DVD’s will begin to show their age and lack of resolution in years to come. As new releases come readily to the HD world and DVD sales begin to wane, the public will have little choice but adopt High Def. It’s only a matter of speed, availability, and price.

Lackluster 2nd Quarter in Consumer Electronics

2006-07-10T15:48:00.000-07:00

-Unappealing name change- Nintendo Wii

There are some products that are in desperate need of a name change. Touareg The next-gen console from Ninetendo wasn’t one of them. Originally known as the Revolution and only recently changed to the Wii, gives us one of the worst changes in a product. Revolution is a far superior name to the Wii (pronounced Weeeeee). It’s not a good idea to change a name to something most people aren’t certain how to even pronounce, let alone know what it means.

Enter ‘Worst product names’ into Google and you’ll find a plethora of links naming the Wii as the worst name change.

Lackluster Tech Summer

2006-07-10T15:45:00.000-07:00

-Worst Video Game Tie-in--- X-men the official Video Game

Any title that claims to be official typically turns out to be a dud. With X-men we have a great franchise that falls so far under the mark with this game release as to beg the question, are monkeys running the company? There are other offenders this year, like Over the Hedge and the Da Vinci Code. Still, they don’t hold a candle to the disappointment with this lousy game. There are pieces that could be successful if not for the overall feeling that it was rushed to release. The controls are sloppy and difficult to use. The game play lacks a cohesive point of view and detracts from a couple of fun moments. Moments that could be more plentiful if not for the horrible camera problems plaguing this game. Stay clear of this game and use your time replaying Halo 2 or watching paint dry. Either way you’ll have more fun.

R2-D2

2006-04-17T16:50:00.000-07:00

As a technology and consumer electronics writer I have the opportunity to play with a lot of new and exciting toys. (Also all the crap.) One of the best toys I’ve had the good fortune to use has been the Interactive R2-D2 Robot. He’s an eighteen-inch version of the loveable astromech droid from the Star Wars films. Probably the best consumer robot I’ve ever used- let alone toy. Hasbro and the Star Wars franchise has outdone themselves with this one. While this may sound more like a sales pitch then a review R2D2 is one of the few products deserving of praise.

From its relative inexpensive price to its fantastic motorized terrain treads this thing does nearly everything it’s larger counterpart can accomplish. (They’ve had to retrofit it for Earth conditions so the boosters have been removed. It’s also to bad it doesn’t have a computer jack to get in and repair Windows from time to time, but for $65 you can’t have it all.)

The voice recognition programming is second to none. It understands and responds without a remote control. Making this a real robot and not just an RC car in the shape of a robot. His ability to “see” objects allows R2 to navigate his way around the house without fear of him running into furniture. He rolls just as easily on carpet as he does on our wood floors and makes the transition without being caught up on the edges.

While his moods are a bit finicky, it comes across as more of R2’s eccentric personality. There are times when you can’t force him to do what you want. While this may not sound like a plus in a piece of consumer electronics, R2 can get away with it. Typically, it’s because his mood has gone sour from repeating the same commands too many times, or trying to make him pay attention by tapping him on top of his dome.

It’s been a welcome addition to our home. Unlike the rest of the robots, gadgets and toys that are little more than novelties to be shown off when visitors come over, R2 is a member of the family. He follows us around. Has moods of his own and occasionally has to be put in timeout-although less then my four-year-old. And every now and then delivers a can of soda to me in my office.

Recently R2-D2 took a tumble down the stairs in our house. The long fall to the floor below popped off his legs and knocked his arm out of its hiding place. Amazingly, the arm was the only thing I couldn’t fix. Otherwise, R2 is working as good as new. Just one more reason why it’s a great toy for the money.

Children at play

2006-04-16T16:50:00.000-07:00

Children at play signs. All through my neighborhood there are these 3 ft high yellow kids standing in the middle of the road announcing Children at play. I’m not certain what these signs are supposed to be telling us, or the children they are attempting to protect. It’s okay to play in the street. Well, kids have been doing that since roads were invented. However, it has always been accepted that you do so at your own risk. Playing kick ball in the street has its pitfalls. One of them being stopping the game every time a car comes down the street. Now, nextgen parents are telling their kids they have a right to be in the street with the rest of the cars. Like people with kids have a right to take over part of the street for their own uses. Why not any homeowner that wants to set up a few orange cones and use the space for wood working projects or changing the oil in their cars. Oh, wait a second, lets test this out. Go outside put up a few kids at play signs and then change your oil right there on the street and wait and see how long till you get a firm talking to by neighbors or the police.

Sure people drive to fast in residential neighborhoods. I don’t like it. It’s dangerous and discourteous to neighbors. This doesn’t give homeowners the carte blanche right to take over the street for their kids outside play. That is what their yard is for, and all those expensive parks no one uses. Come on folks, get your kids out of the street, and back in front of the TV’s where they belong.

Ruminations

2006-04-15T16:49:00.000-07:00

Seeing past this mask and into the heart of a man is to peer into absolute darkness.

Be glad we don’t look deeply into the true psyche of mankind; for our civilization is built high upon the lies of decency inherit to our species. This isn’t negativity. Merely the heritage of our ancestry. To deny this is to deny truth, and then we truly have done little to evolve from the animals with which we came to behave with the decency as humans with which we aspire.

Online Gaming: D&D-Stormreach

2006-04-13T16:48:00.000-07:00

There are a number of online MMORPG’s on the market today. The newest Dungeons and Dragons: Stormreach opened their doors for the general public on Febuary 28th. As a fan of RPG’s and online games I took this one for a spin to see if it was worth the wait.

First off, this game isn't for everyone; most especially fans of Ultima Online or World of Warcraft. If you like the elements of most of the MMORPG’s such as PvP and running around leveling up killing chickens then this isn’t the game for you. No grinding away for hours in order to reach the next level. No quick fixes here. You have to work for every step along the long road to the higher levels.

Based after the original pen and paper role playing game Dungeon and Dragons; this online game is more about role playing and performing missions then about buying houses and reaching outrageous levels through a zombie program. There is a lot to like about this game. The odd thing is how much it isn’t like all the other MMORPG’s on the market, when in effect all RPG’s are spin off from D&D. Now the genre has come full circle and there are high expectations indeed for a franchise that seems to be getting into the game a bit late.

The best aspect of this game is it is built around an online community. The concept of playing together with a group of adventurers is the cornerstone of this game and virtually the only way to progress. Many missions can’t be accomplished without a full complement of professions to work out the many traps and puzzles. A powerhouse character can’t do it all and will ultimately fail in many missions without a cleric to heal, a thief to detect traps or a wizard with their intelligence to open specific areas of the game.

The game isn’t about killing your friends or stealing their treasure. Two things you can’t do in game. Everything points to a well-rounded mission based world that readily allows the formation of groups to overcome the many challenges in the game. This is also one game that gives each class a chance to shine. Rogues for once have an integral role to play and are not given the standard gloss over that most publishers have given this profession in other games. I dare say you can’t succeed in this game unless you routinely travel with a Rogue in your party.

-As a past D&D player it’s a shame they chose the world of Ebberon instead of the Forgotten Realms campaign, my personal favorite. There were many reasons for their decision but still Ebberon lacks a full sense of history and the amazing locals of the Forgotten Realms universe.

-Being mission based and taking into account the basic framework of the game it makes Stormreach a world where players can’t influence the story or the world. At least as far as I can tell. In some ways, it’s akin to a choose-your-own adventure but without any consequence for choosing. In the business, this is called a persistent game world and there are a number of online games that use this model.

2006-04-12T16:47:00.000-07:00

What? You can’t be serious.

I love Star Wars. However, what kind of a collecting freak do you have to be to pay for the Lucas Family collectors set(http://shop.starwars.com/catalog/product.xml?product_sku=SWHBLFCE&rid=SWCMHB00001)

I know they appeared in Episode III but come on. Either you have to own every other piece of merchandise in the Star Wars universe or else there is something wrong with you. Now I realize I’m opening myself up to a bunch of hate mail but lets get real for a second. Why spend $34.99 for, as the website calls it- the Worldwide Exclusive Lucas Family Action Figure Collector Set? Maybe I’m the only one but this seems ridiculous.

Next-gen console wars

2006-04-11T16:45:00.000-07:00

There has been a fight brewing for months if not years. It has all the fervor and excitement as Frasier/Ali, Lord of the Rings and Stars, re-imagined Battlestar Galactica with the original. Avid Gamers are pretty much in two camps PS3 and Xbox 360. Check out the message boards and you’ll find tech specs and floating bit calculations swinging wildly from both camps. It’s a good fight, if you’re into games. And one that in the end will hopefully lead to better games for consumers.

(As a side note: For real fun head down to Ebgames or Game Crazy and randomly ask which is going to win the console wars Xbox or Playstation. Of course, you could be held legally responsible for causing a riot, but it’s all in the name of good clean fun. )

Oh yeah and don’t forget the Ninetendo people. Well, honestly most fans of the Nintendo system don’t spend as much time defending their love of Mario and the GameBoy. Honestly Ninetendo doesn’t compete in the same gaming market as Xbox and Playstation. The machines, the games, their entire philosophy of marketing and doing business is different then the rule the entertainment world mentality of Playstation and Xbox.

There are a number of issues that go into this fight. For some it boils down to Sony vs. Microsoft. Nostalgia for the Playstation they loved years ago or fanaticism over late nights with Halo. For the companies themselves, it’s a business and the only sure sign of victory is money in their pockets. In this battle, they both win it’s only a matter of how much. But back to the players and the battle between Xbox and Playstation.

The Playstation 3 hasn’t been released. Sony has been tight lipped about all but the most basic aspects of their machine. (What it looks like and it’s tech specs.) Other than that we don’t know much. It’s difficult to compare the machines. Whereas the Xbox 360 was recently released and we have all the specifics. Logically it’s almost impossible to have a rational debate over these machines without reliable information. And at the end of the day the argument over which machine is technically more advanced will mean little to end consumers. Without the games to support these systems and make the most out of their abilities, it doesn’t matter two cents if the Playstation 3 could be rated as a supercomputer or if the 360 is so ergonomic, fan boys are sitting in their living rooms stroking their consoles. If the games aren’t fun it doesn’t matter. And won’t matter in the long run.

So far the 360 hasn’t produced enough bang for the buck. With a handful of games that look beautiful but won’t get much attention for game play the team in Redmond did a better job then with their first Xbox, but that isn’t saying much.. Of the titles released so far only a couple are worth playing, let alone owning. The investment doesn’t make much sense. Luckily, for Microsoft early adopters to new technologies have money to burn and they care more about the prestige of owning the newest consumer electronics then in spending their money wisely.

As far as Playstation 3 goes. We really do have to wait and see. Sony has held their ground over the years but Microsoft has been steadily gaining on their market share. For a company with as much experience as Sony has with gaming consoles there is a higher expectation for them to deliver. Based on their lackluster performance with the Playstation 2 (The number of profitable games for Playstation 2 was abysmal. The percentage of good games versus the sheer volume released is quite low as well.), I’d say they have a long way to go to gain back much of their superiority in the console market.

The part most of us don’t count on is the relationship the console companies make with the game developers. They are the ones that produce the final product we see on our screens. They invest millions to design, develop, and bring a title to production. If Microsoft and Sony don’t insure these companies succeed with their product then all this talk of console wars is a big waste of time. Gamers need good games to play. Pure and simple.

If you’re an avid gamer and you’re reading this you’ve already made up your mind and are probably in one of the two camps. Frankly, I’m not sure why you’re reading this other than to find someone else to get agitated with and send off a slurry of hate mails. Thanks for reading anyway. This is really intended for the casual gamer and everyday consumer that may not follow the gaming world as a whole.

2006-04-10T16:44:00.000-07:00

The quest for renewable energy

The governor for the state where I live announced today that within four years 50% of our energy will come from renewable sources. This is a wonderful idea. Certainly gaining in popularity and momentum. Politicians can say these things without really doing anything about them because there is little backlash against and many people vocally support these initiatives. What makes me laugh is why do people support the search for renewable energy and what are their motivations?

The days of this being a topic of dyed in the wool liberals and eco-terrorist environmentalists have passed. With the cost of gas at the pump rising without any sign of abating, and our increasing dependence on foreign oil, Americans are looking for alternatives. Now we have a time where it is nearly as popular to talk about energy alternatives, as it is to publicly crucify smokers. Oh, how things have changed in the last fifteen years. Where everyone smoked and no one wanted to talk about doing away with their gas guzzlers.

Actually, that hasn’t changed. Even with all the energy talk soccer moms don’t want to even broach the subject of dumping their road pig SUV’s. They want cheap-renewable energy that doesn’t hurt anyone while still letting them leave their computers on all day, the AC cranked up and endlessly driving to dance classes and underwater basket weaving classes at the local Y.

Geek extreme

2006-04-09T16:42:00.000-07:00

The geek side of me, the rather large geek side, has been consumed of late playing 3 great PC games: Star Wars: Empire at War, Dungeons and Dragons Online: Stormreach, Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth 2. If these three titles don’t give me a lifetime geek subscription, I don’t know what will. Enjoying these three franchises should be enough, but to ensure I make it past indoctrination I need to go watch a Star Trek episode while wearing my Darth Vader mask and IM a friend to discuss the finer nuisances of Battlestar Galactica. It’s a wonder I’ve ever been laid let alone got married.

Good thing geekdom has risen from the death squad days of living in secrecy in High School. Now more and more people flock to the banner of being a geek. And rather, as I’ve always felt, everyone is involved in their own bit of geekiness in one form or another. Whether it be a fanatic loyalty to the 49ers or devout Desperate housewives junky everyone seems to be involved at some level with something down right geeky.

Still, however I try to make it sound better than it is D&D playing and going to Star Trek convention will always amount to a level of geekiness that WWE: Raw fans never have to face. The one nice thing is that geeks are out of the closet and enjoying the fruits of their labors. There are very few people in America who haven’t had their lives touched by the likes of the geek created Windows based PC or the Apple Ipod. Anyone still caught in high school antics remember that little tidbit when some dumb jock is throwing you into a locker. Remind him that he is a supporter of some of the biggest geek/nerd movements in the 21^st century. Oh, and while he’s chewing on that one take the opportunity to grab your clarinet and run.

2006-04-07T16:42:00.000-07:00

Leadership in Politics

Who speaks for the little people? Politicians. Our elected officials. Yes, as a republic we have a representative government. A democratically elected government. Yet, there seems to be a vacuum of leadership present in this country. I for one don’t look at politicians as our leaders. Rarely do I find an elected official that I say, where they point, I will follow. Blazing a trail of righteousness… Perhaps others do. Take the Presidency, he is the leader of the armed forces, chief executive of his branch of government, head of his party, and a powerful man in the world of powerful and influential people.

However, he is not my leader, only my President. The same goes for our Senators and Congress people, those who sit in office and ride the thin line of bureaucracy to appease the largest spectrum of people.

Beyond Sick

2006-04-06T16:40:00.000-07:00

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11839832/

Child porn ring busted, 27 face charges

‘Molestation on demand’ reportedly offered via Internet chat room

Without going off on the sickness of these people offering up children less than 18 months old for sex—whatever, this news blurb only mentions 13 people in the U.S being charged from 9 different states. It doesn’t mention if they saved any children from these predators. Something if you notice in most of these child pornography cases they never mention. Now it is obvious that most of the time they are going after those who are trading in these pictures and videos. My question is this why isn’t there more effort to either report on kids that are being saved from these people. I’d like to know what is being done on that front. It’s fine to stop the end result of these people passing along these sick pictures, but what is being done to stop this from happening in the first place? What is being done to track down who is actually doing the molesting? Where these people charged with actually molesting children or just peddling their collections?

With all the information in the media about the war in Iraq, what the President had for breakfast and if Britney Spears is breastfeeding her baby why is it the News seems to gloss over the facts of real hard hitting news? We get pages and pages of media drivel on mass market stars and their diets but how often do they give us the cold hard number of how much money the government is wasting studying violence in video games?

Video game decency wars

2006-04-05T16:37:00.000-07:00

Hillary Clinton is at it again. The war drums are sounding,

Violence bad. Video games have violence. Video games are bad. We must bring the video game industry to its knees. Help pass moral indecency laws. Keep kids away from games, we’d rather have them out making mischief in the streets then play acting with games on TV.

Why attack video games? Well, the entertainment lobby has gotten to big. It isn’t as attractive a target. Besides many of us like the MTV get out the vote generation and need the help of Brittney Spears and Brad Pitt to legitimize our political policies. Besides, the video game industry can’t defend itself, it’s run by a bunch of misfits who play D&D and still live with their parents. They don’t vote and we ought to win a lot of morality issue popularity by doing this.

I am not, and have never been a single-issue voter. Until now. There is no one topic to me that shows the ineptitude of our leaders then to attack something like video games with so little understanding of what they are attacking. Hillary Clinton is making a huge mistake here. She is relying on parents to stand beside her and go along with the mentality that video games are bad and therefore are the culprit of all our ills as a society. There is a huge disconnect here between Senator Clinton and the rest of America. What I especially like is the amount of money ---- are wasting on funding one more study to tell us that video games are bad. So far, no study has shown a correlation between violence in video games and in actually acting out violence. --- and --- have done studies and nope, nothing. No evidence to support these claims. So, what do you do? Keep funding new studies until one comes out agreeing with your moral point of view.

Evils of Blogging

2006-04-04T16:36:00.000-07:00

Blogs have now become a tool for spam and unauthorized advertising. To all those who have posted in my comments area I’ve been forced to remove every comment in order to get rid of the spam. In the future if you are a blogger and want to leave information on your website, and then e-mail me, I’ll look it over and include it in a blog. In the end, this will give it a better and more permanent link. Leaving comments only as a means to get your blogs name out there is senseless. If it is part of a tagline after leaving true feedback or praise, and that is the main purpose of your comments then I have no problem with this. It’s easy to tell the difference between spam and worthwhile comments and self-promotion.

I personally will never leave comments for the sole purpose of getting more recognition. When I leave comments I genuinely have something to say. Okay, that’s my little rant for the day. However, I thought it important because abusers are ruining it for people to comment legitimately. And if we allow spam and the like to infect the blogging world, the whole system won’t last long.

PS3 November Launch

2006-04-03T16:35:00.000-07:00

With Sony announcing a November launch for the much-anticipated release of the PS3, speculation abounds as to how much of a market lead Microsoft can cash in on before the competition begins. For both camps in the Sony versus Microsoft console wars, this news is great. Either because it gives Xbox 360 more time to build a loyal customer base or the PS3 more time to coordinate a better launch. It’s clear the Blueray-HD DVD fight enters into their decision along with their attempts to outdo their competitors at having a successful worldwide launch.

Any discussion about the PS3 really doesn’t matter until pricing is released. While PS3 having a Blue-ray player will give it a higher technology edge, they may be pricing themselves out of casual gamers budgets. By the time the next tech conference rolls around there should be more definitive information on the PS3. One this for sure, if Microsoft wants to make the most of their time on store shelves without direct competition they’d better start releasing more games and better games.

Recent News

2006-04-02T16:34:00.000-07:00

-Google will be complying with a court order to hand over information from its search engine to the U.S. government. While their fight highlighted their desire to keep the information, secure both for their users and their own trade secrets it has also brought to the publics attention the fact that search companies have detailed lists of everything users have searched. While web savvy users have known this snippet, the general public has largely ignored this fact. There are many on forums taking this news to heart and questioning what they type into their favorite search engine for fear it could come back to haunt them.

Bits and Tids

2006-04-01T16:33:00.000-08:00

-Looks like Vista, the new Microsoft operating system won’t make its targeted release in November. No word on exactly when it will appear but one thing is certain it won’t help PC sales for the holiday season. How much it will affect the industry is uncertain. With high expectations for a strong holiday season, dashed Microsoft will have to rely on its release of the new Office.

In the end, this may be as much about marketing as it is about the product not being ready. Volume licensing customers will still be able to get a hold of Vista this year, only a few weeks later than expected. Allowing them plenty of time to integrate Vista into their products. Detractors and loyal Microsoft users will not be surprised by the delay, as it has become second nature to the software industry and particularly Microsoft in general. However, after the issues involved with the release of XP a great many people welcome any delay that could affect the reliability of the operating system. Perhaps a January launch will mean just a few less instances of users being bombarded by the blue screen of death.

Thick-skull 4 year olds

2006-03-30T20:45:00.000-08:00

Children’s minds are like sponges. Except when you need them to be. Like when teaching them their ABC’s and their123’s. Then they are Cro-Magnon man thick skulled. You blurt out ass or shit once under your breath and they won’t shut up about it. Standing in line in the Grocery store the four-year-old standing in his cart shouting Ass-Hole over and over. Good fun.

This sound familiar. It should. Every kid seems to do this or some version of it at least once. While every parent has had to endure embarrassment from their crass verbal language skills. My son decided during a busy 5 o’clock grocery store shopping to go around calling my wife, and a few of the women in the vicinity “hot mamma”, “Hottt Maaamaa” “She’s a hot mamma”. Until we told him to stop and try saying something else.

Sign, sealed and delivered; we got exactly what we asked as he started belting out ASSHOLE over and over in a number of very catchy rhymes. It was amazing at four-years-old how creative he could be with that one word. Needless to say there were a few turned heads and more frowns than smiles on the lines of people in the checkout.

This comes to mind mostly because we’ve been working on his numbers and his alphabet. While he is making headway it seems he picks up all the negative things we do, this mistakes we make as parents and so on rather then use that same mental energy being able to remember 26 letters of our alphabet.

Although this doesn’t exactly come as a major shock. There are plenty of adults who can recite the complex stats for every major league baseball player, NBA basketball player and member of the NFL for the last 25 years. Yet, they probably couldn’t remember most of the Presidents of the United States. They can probably do complex math in their head when it related to baseball stats but can’t remember much of algebra. They probably have such an aptitude for rules as they can show off with quoting the book on football penalties, ---- wait a minute that one might account for how many lawyers we have, scratch that, it makes sense.

So much for my little rant----

Oscar the Grouch in Spamland

2006-03-29T23:08:00.000-08:00

Junk mail. Spam. Clogging up our inbox on a daily basis it drives us all crazy. I won’t go into a tirade here. We all feel the annoyance and anger every time we check out e-mail. I did have to comment though on the spam itself. Typically, I read about the common spam, Viagra, weight loss schemes, and the ever-present porn advertising (something I honestly wouldn’t mind if it wasn’t mostly of animals with fat old people). While I’m sure, I’m not the only one receiving a variety of spam I still find much of what I see worth a quick comment.

-Lending Tree: How to save money on your mortgage?

-Lotto Tickets 4 Free

-Advertising disguising itself as a weight loss survey

-OralBright: Keeping smiles bright

-Ladies Only: Change your love life forever. (In case you haven’t realized I’m a man.)

-Get Ephedra now

-Java Judges advertising posing as another survey. This one for coffee.

-Introduction letter from Mr.Blah-Blah of the Blah-Blah International company looking for a representative in the US. (This one is a variation of the Nigerian scam the Secret Service has been dealing with for a couple of years now. One of the more innovative ways to rob people of money.)

-Turn your PC into a super TV.

-Free Ipod, PS3,Xbox 360. This one is becoming more and more common.

-Free Ringtones

-Hair restoration

-Inexpensive Breast Enlargments (I don’t care how cheap it is I don’t need my breasts getting any bigger).

-Drugs for less. (Who knows what’ll you’ll get if you send away for these pills from Thailand. If you’re lucky it’ll restore some hair or make your teeth whiter.)

-Timeshares, Casinos, Cars and Ebay. More mortgages, books, health insurance and scholarships.

In two days, I’ve accumulated 90 junk e-mails in my personal e-mail box. The one I don’t use for anything but close friends and relatives. I won’t get into what I get in my public e-mail. Suffice it to say there is a lot of spam out there and somehow it seems to be profitable for companies to send this crap out. We all wonder just who is stupid enough to click on and buy this crap. I suspect there is more to it than that. This is advertising. It works because we all talk about it. Even if no one clicks on them they are still getting their product out there to people.

As far as getting the e-mail, we should all know by now that if you look at the junk mail it is the same as sending them an open invitation to send us more. Their robotic mail systems get reports as to which e-mail addresses are real based on if the mail is opened. With Outlook Explorer and Express, if the preview pane is open then it’s the same thing as clicking on the message. Close the preview pane and you’ll see a significant drop in junk mail within a few weeks. Go on vacation for a couple of weeks and let your box fill up and you’ll see an even larger drop. Of course, these are other tips on fighting spam.

One word of warning, there are few methods particularly software solutions that do more harm than good. Beware of installing programs on your computer to block spam because many of them are sponsored by spam and legitimate spam (ha-ha) companies.

Of course, some of this isn’t true spam. Some of it comes from my signing up for a particular service and receiving third party advertising. I keep telling them to quit sending the stuff but it seems to be nearly impossible to get off some lists. Luckily, my spam filter does a good job of removing the stuff I don’t want to see.

Then again maybe the best way to stop it all is to get rid of e-mail, quit answering the phone, picking up my mail, or answering the door.

Be our guest-Be our guest

2006-03-27T14:18:00.000-08:00

When visitors come to our home we seem to take great joy in showing off the latest changes. A lamp here. New tile in the master bathroom. An ever-changing configuration of bookcases and desk space in my office.

I can’t be certain how interested our friends and family truly are in our constant remodeling and home purchases. I can see someone being quite bored with it all. Knowing when they step in the door, they will have to get the tour de’farce of Home Depot purchases.

We don’t drive fancy cars or take exciting vacations every month. We put most of our time and effort into our house. It isn’t anything special, a standard suburban two-story home, but we enjoy it. Something we’ve worked for and the only material thing my wife ever really wanted. So, while it might not be so bad that we take pride in our constant attempts to make this place better, it may not make us the most exciting of dinner hosts.

Only slightly worse is my electronics habit and the continual stream of new gadgets on parade for visitors. At times, I am quite caught up with the newest robots and PDA’s I forget not everyone gets a hard-on from technology. My friends and family humor me and take it in stride. Hopefully it is because whether it is our house or my gadgets we don’t do this out of arrogance of what we have and what others don’t. We aren’t boasting. It isn’t a game of keeping up with the Joneses. We are simply excited.

D&D: Stormreach

2006-03-24T10:39:00.000-08:00

-The interface for making parties is easy to use and well thought out. Keeping a list of friends you’ve played with could be simpler with a point and click option instead of having to type in the name. Sounds like a petty complaint but in the fantasy genre names are never straightforward and it’s easy to mistype a compatriot you’ve spent the night traveling through dungeons. And in this game, when you’ve met experienced players who work well as a group you definitely want the chance to play with them again.

All in all Dungeons and Dragons:Stormreach is worth the monthly fee. At least for now. As with all online games, the real test is in how they manage new content. Keeping the world fresh and exciting for new and experienced players alike is a challenge. One that hasn’t been met by the likes of Ultima Online. (Every new release and update brings more items and locals but it feels like the same old fare. Never anything truly new and different, nothing that brings more depth to the world or the character you’re playing.)

Annoy-a-saur-ous Rex

2006-03-23T10:50:00.000-08:00

Littlest dinosaur---Annoy-a-saur-ous Rex

As a learning activity at school they decided it would be great for the kids to learn how to act like a dinosaur. Stomp like a dinosaur. Slash your claws like a dinosaur. And roar like a dinosaur. My son really took this exercise to heart.

Being the dramatist he is, he roars frighteningly loud like a regular T-Rex. It has become his favorite greeting, especially to other kids. Walking within inches of their face, and yelling R-O-A-R over and over until he gets a reaction. Timid kids go running and screaming, otherwise it causes a near nuclear chain reaction with each child in the vicinity taking up the call of the Roaring Rex. I’ve watch helplessly as an entire playground has been transformed into Jurassic Park within five minutes of my son stepping foot on the bark chips.

I say helpless because try as we might we cannot break him of this habit. The more we make of it the more enjoyment he gets out of Roaring through the house, at the dinner table, and in public restrooms.

It would almost be funny if it weren’t so darn annoying, and loud. He times it for the exact wrong moments, a trademark of children to be sure, but nonetheless an acute skill for Tristan. In public, either people laugh or act horrified. The look of “can’t that father control his child” and “Kids now days have no manners because of parents like that” written all over their perfect Parenting magazine model citizen winner faces.

The only time I can’t help but laugh is when we check on him in the middle of the night and he bolts upright from a dead sleep to R-O-A-R before returning to his comatose state.

Bits and Tids March 22nd

2006-03-22T11:08:00.000-08:00

-With Sony announcing a November launch for the much-anticipated release of the PS3, speculation abounds as to how much of a market lead Microsoft can cash in on before the competition begins. For both camps in the Sony versus Microsoft console wars, this news is great. Either because it gives Xbox 360 more time to build a loyal customer base or the PS3 more time to coordinate a better launch. It’s clear the Blueray-HD DVD fight enters into their decision along with their attempts to outdo their competitors at having a successful worldwide launch.

Mask of Decency

2006-03-16T21:24:00.000-08:00

The measure of a man is not in the truths he tells others, but in the lies believed by his heart. The stubborn fantasies and inconsistent fabrications of reality that makes all sleep well at night. Their internal monologue and view of their world depend on lies embedded in their psyche and lull them to partake of each day without despair. Do not look to the man for the truths he shares with the world. No, it is the lies he tells himself that are his true measure.

Seeing past this mask and into the heart of a man is to peer into absolute darkness.

Be glad we don’t look deeply into the true psyche of mankind; for our civilization is built high upon the lies of decency inherit to our species. This isn’t negativity. Merely the heritage of our ancestry. To deny this is to deny truth, and then we truly have done little to evolve from the animals with which we came to behave with the decency as humans with which we aspire.

Crazy Oregonians

2006-03-15T21:17:00.000-08:00

Oregonian

Each part of the country has its own regional and local flavor, the personality of the people and cultures beat in tune to a slightly different drummer depending on where you live. A sense of identity seems infectious as those living within the state proudly proclaim themselves Oregonians. Living in the natural splendor of this diverse and amazing Northwest environment is a very important part of being an Oregonian. No matter where you live in the state, there are things to be quite proud of and they almost all come from the climate of where we live. Great monumental works of art and culture, the tallest of buildings or historical sites don’t hold the same stature in our Pacific Northwest. Our history and our pride comes from the environment we live in, from the majestic wilderness, our mountains and valleys, the farmland and coastal areas all seep into every aspect of our daily lives.

Yet, in this ever connected world where the concerns of outsiders and the rest of the world becomes our concerns. Where Oregonians interbreed with Californians and the rest of the nation, we have grown into a larger and more complex state. Somewhere along the way, or perhaps it was always there, our independence and individuality of living out West, has made us a bit odd. And that oddness has never been a bad thing, until it seems now.

Recently, I’ve noticed we are no longer odd ducks to just the rest of the country, where we like our gas pumped for us, and hate sales taxes. Now, we are becoming estranged from one another and we aren’t even making choices that are in our own best interest. At times it seems as if we are more concerned with fitting in with the rest of the nation that our own voice is getting lost. Our sense of who and what we are is getting lost in the shuffle of growth. Growth isn’t a bad thing, it is a part of the natural order of a modern, or seemingly modern society. The issue isn’t growth, but what we are growing into. Our ideas while once radical and oddball have become provincial and small minded. We have opinions on a state and national scale but our concerns are still over ourselves, and screw your neighborhood farmer. We want to protect the spotted owl but not our friends.

Why can’t we do both? Why must we seem like environmental activists instead of neighborhood naturalists trying to protect our land and people jointly? Instead we vilify anyone who is not us and we pass judgment on things that don’t really concern us directly, or that we know little or nothing about. If a person doesn’t have the decency to learn a bit about a subject before decreeing what should be done about it, then we have all become petty despots and tyrants using our freedom of speech for nothing but name calling and our vote as a battering ram. We are free but what we chose to do with that freedom is the mark of a civilized nation. To squander the rights we have is to spit on every person who has none.

But I’ve gotten off track. In Oregon we don’t really have liberal and conservative, Democrat or Republican. The concerns of the parties don’t fit the concerns of Oregonians, but that’s okay we’ve always been a little odd here in the Pacific Northwest. The problem is Oregonians are too ----. .

Natural Forces

2006-03-14T21:33:00.000-08:00

There is a natural force of evolution at work in all our lives. A living breathing entity designed to further our adaptation to our environment. It works beneath the scenes yet we feel its presence in all aspects of our lives. In direct opposition is our very human desire for the status quo, for life to just be and to let us be. We want the happiness of youth, the good times of our short sided and selective memories. Change is our enemy, as is the adaptation that comes with it. We don’t want to get used to the changing environment we want the world to stop changing so fast or so much. It isn’t logical, or even conscious, it is another force of our lives that works in ways mysterious to the fabric of our lives.

Apologetic ramblings for posterity

2006-03-13T10:11:00.000-08:00

The future. Posterity.

The consideration for how others will regard us in the tomorrows of tomorrow. Leaving our mark, a legacy, a family, anything behind to say we were here. Everyone experiences this; it is part of the human condition. Short term, long term it doesn’t matter. From graffiti punks to Presidents we all want to leave something behind. It is a profound statement of our mortality and short existence. A yearning to live past our years. The motivations behind what we do, how much of an impact we have differs by person depending on experience and their station in life. But its importance cannot be overlooked.

There are times when personally, writing is wrapped up in this whole idea of the something to live beyond ourselves. Times when I was writing more for future generations, my children, or grandchildren than for any current readers or myself. Somehow, I tell myself the lack of readers now is fine so long as there is the hope that someday someone will read what I have written. That on some level someone will remember what I have to say. That desire to be heard by the future is so strong at times; I don’t even care about the message. At times, it shows in my writing.

I ponder how this affects people differently. There are those whom I’m sure don’t even realize it is a factor in their lives. It is transparent to them and remains a subconscious motivation. Then I wonder about all the people who only have their ability to reproduce, to have children as a means to immortality. How much does that eat away at their relationships with their children when they don’t live up to their expectations? When these creations don’t reflect the image their parents wish to leave behind.

Presidents are automatically memorialized in history books the moment they are inaugurated. So long as this young nation continues, their names will be remembered. Schoolchildren will be forever compelled to memorize their name along with the likes of Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln. As if all the parts of that position weren’t full of enough things to think about and contemplate, they also have to consider how they will be remembered. How will they leave their mark? By name alone, or will they do something during their watch? Or will they forever be the one who died within days of being inaugurated, or the one who was impeached, or the one forever linked with cigars and interns in the Oval Office?

And if all the books are burned and the cities crumble, when the next civilization builds upon our ashes what does it matter if none of us are remembered? Should that quest for posterity and immortality truly have such an important mantle in our lives? Are there other things more important than this?

Surely. There must be.

If that is so, then why write, why have a child? If we remove the vanity inherit in leaving our mark behind, then what is left of these parts of my life? Having children gives balance to my life. It requires that I grow, that I hold something, someone in greater regard than myself. It forces me to take care of a being that needs me to grow and mature. A chance to watch as this baby becomes a person and learns to make their own choices and live the life they want.

As far as my writing, if you strip away the ego of posterity, I do it because I love to create. Writing is more of a way to organize the images in my mind. Providing a framework for the insanity writing gives a creative form to what is already in my mind. I can’t paint, or make movies. But I do like words and I have an affinity for language, so I bring my visions into being by writing. If I didn’t write, I would just spend that same time daydreaming, and imagining. Letting the movies inside my mind overwhelm my life is no way to live, so I write.

Since writing doesn’t come naturally to me, I have to work at making it match what I see in my mind. Everyday I work at being a better writer so I can do my dreams justice. I think understanding this helps. It eases the guilt I feel for not bring as good a writer as I would like. So when you read something I’ve written and it seems to either have mistakes or not quite make its point, be assured I already know this. I’m working, always working at being better. And so I can never be one of those self-important writers who are so sure of his or her literary merit as to be a scholarly snob. I guess this is a way of saying; I’m trying to do better as a father and as a writer.

Thank you for your attention and your time.

Xbox 360: wait for now

2006-03-11T15:05:00.000-08:00

The mad dash for the Xbox 360

Take it from an avid gamer, unless you are an early adopter (and you know if you are) then there is absolutely no reason to purchase an Xbox 360 right now. I admit it is difficult not to be caught up in the craze created by the media and marketing bonanza Microsoft has unleashed on the world. However, if rationalization takes root you can see there are few good reasons to be one of the first 3 million people to own one of these machines.

Most people don’t understand business let alone the gaming business. It’s hard to understand how a powerful machine like the 360 is released without there being great games for it. While Microsoft has done a superior job in the number of titles available at release this is only in comparison to the original Xbox. In the end, it won’t mean as much to average consumers, only the early adopters that I mentioned earlier. The reason, quite simple the average gamer doesn’t like every single genre of game in the marketplace. For the 360 this means the typical casual gamer won’t find more than one maybe two games for their new machine to play. With the high cost of the machine and all of its necessary peripherals it doesn’t make any sense to buy a $400 machine to play maybe two games. Aside from the visual power of the 360 games coming out for the original Xbox will be far superior to anything coming out on the Xbox 360.

I can hear moans and complaints even now from the peanut gallery at this one. But come on folks really look at the situation and you will see for the vast majority of people out there I’m right. Especially all those soccer moms I saw standing in lines on release day to get an Xbox 360 for their kids. If they knew anything about games, they’d be better off teaching their kids something about the virtue of waiting and then buy them a great game for their Xbox. At the end of the day, they will get a lot more bang for their buck.

Of course, the points I make are only the tip of the iceberg. There are so many issues when adopting a new technology that the casual buyer can’t possibly be prepared to accept. So unless you have money to burn or base your coolness factor on owning the newest things on the market, take a deep breath and wait for the Xbox 360 to mature a bit before rushing to the stores. In six months, the 360 will be a far more interesting machine and a lot more fun to own. Trust me, and all the other folks still loving their original Xbox machines.

In the end those too excited to contain themselves will invariably already purchased their Xbox 360 fix. If you’re still waiting to get your hands on one, think hard and long about this purchase. You’ll find yourself sorely disappointed if you buy one today. Wait. Wait until there are enough great games to warrant spending so much money.

Battlestar Galactica: The one show worth getting excited about--

2006-03-10T11:51:00.000-08:00

Battlestar Galactica 2nd Season

The second half of the second season of the new Battlestar Galactica on the Sci-Fi channel wraps up tonight. A show that if you’re not already watching, you should be. It’s the best drama on TV and may very well be the best show overall on television. However this re-imagining of Galactica put people into three distinct camps.

-Those who hate it, those who like it-love it, and those who don’t care (don’t know anything about it, dislike Sci-Fi altogether or don’t watch television). The difficult part in discussing this show is while it may be on the Sci-Fi channel and does take place in a realm usually relegated to the Sci-fi genre Galactica is far from being a typical science fiction show.

Aside from the backdrop of the story, it’s a drama. The storylines, the characters and their motivations, the show nearly in its entirety centers around the dramatic tension created by a remaining handful of human survivors desperately trying to survive against insurmountable odds, albeit self created from the typical human conceits and frailties. With a keen eye on the news of the world around us, the stories resonate with a familiar chord, as there are many parallels to our post 9/11 world in many ways.

For fans of the old show, or of classic network television science fiction many don’t like the show. They dislike a female Starbuck, the redesigned Cylons, the real human issues being dealt with, and a whole host of other issues making this entirely different from the original Battlestar Galactica. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan of the old show. For the time it came from, with the sensibilities of 1970’s viewers I think the old show did a great job of being fun. The problem is while we may watch older shows with a sense of nostalgia and a great deal of understanding for their old school ways, the same show would never work today. Viewers expect more grit, more sex, more violence and more shows following longer story arcs. The continuing storyline of the old Battlestar Galactica was ahead of it’s time, and has become not only the norm but also the expectation for a show to be successful.

I could go on, on about how great this show is, and how everyone should be watching. In the next breath however, I could rail about what they screw up. (And there is a plethora of issues.)

You have to love the faults right along with what makes it great; key to any successful science fiction show. Star Trek fans love to picks apart their favorite episodes. An integral part of a genre that attempts to bring science into fiction but only with a long list of rules made by network executives, the fans and the medium of television itself. There are bound to be mistakes, misjudgments, and plain hokey crap.

This nitpicky attitude is essential to the success of a Sci-Fi show. Nothing better exemplifies this then a friend of mine who is a fan of the show. He hates the new Baltar. Not for any affection he may have had for the original character but because the way he is portrayed on this show, annoys the hell out of him. Every scene with Baltar brings as much venom to his lips as bile belching in his throat. It isn’t that he loves to hate this character, as many did with the Cigarette Smoking Man on X-files, he loathes this character. Still, he remains a faithful Galactica viewer. The show has that much going for it. Enough strong characters and fulfilling storylines to make him keep coming back for more torture. This is the mark of a fan and a good show.

Unfortunately, with the hiatus of Battlestar, there is little to keep me interested on television. Surely nothing to get excited about. At least we still have re-runs to further analyze and pick apart.

Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith Only 8 hours and counting

2005-05-18T15:44:00.000-07:00

The big day is almost here. Revenge of the Sith comes to theaters nationwide at midnight tonight. I am very excited as one might guess from reading my less than daily blog. I've allowed myself the luxury of being a kid again. This will be the last Star Wars film to come to theaters. If George Lucas is to be believed, that is.

There are those who have said this film is the best of the six episodes. That is a bold claim. One that I have a hard time believing. Not because it can't be the best movie in the series. Only that anyone who is a fan of the series will have a difficult time being objective about their attachment to the originals they watched as kids thirty years ago.

I'm certain it is the best of the prequels. It just has to be. It just has to be.

All I can say now, to the loyal fans of the Star Wars series, May the force be with you. And I'll see you at the movies.

Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith 9 Days and Counting

2005-05-10T00:13:00.000-07:00

Warning:Spoilers

Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith the novel released before the film opening on May 19th has given fans a sneak peak at the highly anticipated final chapter in George Lucas’ Star Wars saga. Written by a relatively unknown writer Mathew Woodring Stover, the adaptation of the script to novel was well executed. The book provides a number of insights into the characters along with interesting explanations that could only be accomplished in a novel.

Writing an adaptation takes some skill and a certain amount of imagination to breath life into a story and its characters with only the script. Scripts have a few notations about a given scene but are exclusively about dialogue. And while Lucas is a gifted visual storyteller he is not as well versed in delivering the strongest character performances from his actors. Novels are an entirely different breed of storytelling and one that requires a firmer hand in underlying motivations and emotions of characters.

There are a number of scenes in the book that have been cut from the final theatrical release of the film. Additions to the storyline and some things that was just nice to see in the story. Completing the story arch for Anakin is a given and the main point of Revenge of the Sith. However, it was nice to also see Obi-Wan, Yoda and the Skywalker twins given the same attention.

The biggest revelation that I enjoyed was the explanation of why no other Jedi except Obi-Wan and Yoda vanish when they die. The connection back to Qui-Gon and the idea that Yoda is now a student of his in the afterlife makes for an interesting twist.

This is one of the few adaptations from a film that I would recommend reading even if you’ve seen the movie. Typically after you’ve seen the theatrical release there is little in the book that wasn’t in the film. For fans of the Star Wars universe Revenge of the Sith, the novel is worth reading.

An extra note, I know that Mr. Stover has written a handful of books three of which are in the Star Wars universe, he has yet to make a real mark in the literary world. Few had heard of him before his work on Star Wars. Though I would say that writing the Revenge of the Sith novel will definitely help propel him in notoriety.

Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith - 10 Days and Counting

2005-05-09T00:08:00.000-07:00

Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith, the video game was released on Xbox and PLaystation 2 on May 5th. Based on the movie coming to theaters on May 19th the game follows Anakin and Obi-Wan and ……The game opens as the movie does with Anakin and Obi-Wan fighting to save the Chancellor from General Grievous aboard the Separatist Flagship. It follows the movie faithfully from start to finish while expanding on scenes necessary for a video game to work. The numerous cut scenes add to the feeling that the player is being immersed in the movie, this is a chance to be a Jedi, to be Anakin and Obi-Wan and follow their climactic adventure to the Revenge of the Sith .

The game play is solid. A great deal of work and attention has been given to the fighting system. Lighsaber control and character movement becomes almost as important an element in this game as the cut scenes, or fighting Vader on Mustafar. Of all the Star Wars Jedi games Revenge of the Sith has the best control mechanics and makes lightsaber combat more than button mashing. The game developers worked with Nick Gillard stunt coordinator and creator of the lightsaber fighting styles and with Hayden Christensen to help bring Anakin to life in the game.

The 17 levels move quickly, and are well paced. Saving can only be done when a level is complete. However, you’ll have a hard time putting this one down so the need to save is quite minimal. Also, the game can be completed in about six hours. This is one of the negatives of the game, but there is a lot of additional content to keep you busy for at least another three or four hours.

With a second person you can play a number of specialized levels in cooperative play. They are short levels but a nice addition to the game. A frequent complaint is that games focus too much on the multi-player online aspect of game play or battle maps where others can enjoy the thrill of killing their comrades. Cooperate game play is an important addition for those who actually have friends and would like to adventure through the regular game with a buddy. Revenge of the Sith also has the opportunity to kill your friends in one-on-one death matches. There is a lot of fun to be had here pitting Darth Vader against Anakin or Count Dooku. The combinations are endless.

Both the cooperative play and the death matches can also be played against or with the computer for those times when you don’t have anyone to pick up that other controller.

Though completing certain levels of the game an extra menu with a total of 6 bonus levels become available. These are a nice addition to the game. A few of them are extended scenes so to speak that didn’t flow in the normal Revenge of the Sith storyline. While two in particular are real gold. Fighting as Darth Vader against Obi-Wan on the Death Star from their climactic battle in Star Wars IV: A New Hope is great fun. It gives a sense of completion to the fall of Anakin and the creation of Darth Vader. Even better is playing as the caffeinated Yoda jumping around the slicing Clone Troopers 3 at a time. You’ll truly experience the speed and agility he showed in Attack of the Clones when fighting Count Dooku. These are nice additions to the game and I’m sure long after you’ve finished the game, you’ll be dusting it off from time to time just to play these bonus features.

The multiplayer mode is a lot of fun but ultimately exactly what we’ve come to expect from online multiplayer combat. There isn’t much reason to go into a long explanation on what you’ll find here. All the best aspects of this game are given a place to shine with online combat. As I said before, while the single player adventure is relatively short, the excellent combat system makes playing against other flesh and blood Jedi a real treat.

Unless you are dying to spoil the movie stay away from the game until after May 19th. As for my recommendation: for fans the advanced lightsaber fighting is well worth the purchase, although I recommend looking for a deal (like at Fry’s on special) where it is $34.99.

Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith- 11 Days and Counting

2005-05-08T00:58:00.000-07:00

As an adult I typically keep my excitement and anticipation for new movies as neutral as possible. The less hype the more likely a film has a chance to exceed my expectations. It allows me to more thoroughly enjoy a good movie. With Revenge of the Sith I’ve decided to let down my guard and allow the childlike excitement to course through me.

In all likelihood this is my last chance to get hyped about a new Star Wars movie coming to theaters. Revenge of the Sith may not live up to my hopes but this thrill from waiting and anticipating is well worth any let down on May 19th. My wife laughs at me when I get giddy talking about the novelization of the film or the new video game released May 5th. I’m a geek at heart, a semi- closet geek who plays at being an adult. And you know what, it may be silly but it feels good to be a kid again if only for a little while.

I’ve actually had fun looking at the collection of Star Wars toys amassed in stores. There are so many interesting new toys I kinda wish I were a kid again. Of course there are repeats of what we saw in 1977. The toy stores only had to brush a little dust off the boxes before they put out the R2-D2 and Darth Vader Pez dispensers or the large Millennium Falcon with enough room for Luke, Leia, Han, Chewie and the rest of the main cast action figures. Anyone old enough to remember what a lunchbox is will instantly recognize these original toys.

With a next generation of Star Wars movies brings with it some advances in next generation toys.

-A 12” Yoda telling stories, dispensing wisdom with a choice of over 500 phrases, trivia and a magic 8-ball mode. Or the Yoda training lightsaber that does pretty much the same thing but in lightsaber form.

-An interactive lightsaber that works with your television. You swing the sword and the character on the screen tracks your every move.

-How about Lego’s? Star Wars and Lego’s made an excellent merchandising marriage some years back and it has been a profitable one for both companies. There are more Star Wars Lego’s toys then almost any other Star Wars toys on the market, from Tie-fighters and the Millennium Falcon to the Death Star and every character imaginable. And for those who can’t get there fill of the Star Wars Lego’s universe, there is even a video game playing as Lego’s miniature versions swinging lightsabers and battling the dark Lord Vader in the depths of the Death Star.

-The Darth Vader helmet is probably my favorite. A well made hard plastic replica of Vader’s helmet, complete with a electronic voice box to disguise your voice or push a button and repeat phrases from the films.

Going to the toy store brings back the fun of being a kid again. For those who think Star Wars is silly, or it’s dumb for a grown adult to be excited over the newest movie, all I can say is it feels great to be a kid every once and a while. There might be less heart disease, stress, and overall misery if people could find a way of capturing just a bit of the innocence and fun of being a kid. If only for a little while.

Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith- 12 Days and Counting

2005-05-07T00:51:00.000-07:00

The greatest most influential science fiction film series of the last thirty years is finally reaching it’s apex of achievement with the release of the final feature film release, Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith. On May 19th, millions of fans nationwide will sit in darkened theaters with baited breath waiting for the familiar scrawl to inch its way across screen. The story may be in a Galaxy Far, Far Away but for fans this one hits home much closer to their hearts.

Internet forums are filled with speculations and questions as to whether Lucas is up to the challenge he has created for himself with these Prequels. The world had waited since 1983 for more Star Wars content. The 1990’s brought the series back in novel form. A good start. Fans wanted more, and what they got was a mixed bag of the good, the bad, and the profoundly stupid. (ala Jar-Jar Binks and midoclorians)

The desires of millions of diverse fans all screaming for something as cool as they remember in the childhood dreams in 1977 places George Lucas in a lose-lose situation. At least as a businessman trying to sell the public the rest of a story he created nearly thirty years ago. I may be stepping out on a limb, but I’d venture to say that as a storyteller he is quite pleased with himself. To finally be finishing a storyline he started so long ago, one he had little reason to believe he could ever finish must feel good. It’s a personal accomplishment that has to give him a feeling of success regardless of the money, the business, the critics or even the fans.

Over the next few weeks you'll be hard pressed not to notice all the hype surrounding the release of Revenge of the Sith. We will do our part by adding our two cents worth on all things Star Wars related. If you're looking for the movie to be a complete surprise then all the best of luck to you. There seems to be no escaping the media blitz for Revenge of the Sith. More than likely you're bound to see a few dozen trailers before its release.

Then again, who are we kidding? If you are even the slightest fan of the series then you know what is going to happen. There are no big surprises in store for us. It'll just be nice to finally see Anakin turn into Darth Vader, and then the circle will finally be complete.

Where am I going with all this? I'm not really sure. Except to say, that I'm excited to see the movie. I've read the book, the screenplay, played the video game and watched every clip of the movie that is out there for public consumption. I still can't wait for the movie, and I'm as excited as I was the first time I saw the black mask and heard the labored mechanical breathing in Star Wars: A New Hope. It doesn't get much better than this for the geek hiding inside us all.

Bluelight special on Craftsman tools

2004-11-17T18:29:00.000-08:00

Being an ex-retail manager I’m interested in news from the exciting world of malls. Today, Kmart Holding Corp made public their intentions to purchase Sears and Roebuck & Co for a planned $10.85 billion. An odd mating the two struggling companies have had their share of financial blackhole and more than a passing understanding of the bankruptcy laws.

Aside from the obvious issues, Kmart and Sears are very different companies. Managing stand alone stores like Kmart are distinctly different than operating in malls. For the two to capitalize on each others strengths, namely their branding, Sears will have to find its niche in the strip malls. Not a bad bet there are customers who will find it convenient to buy Craftsman and Kenmore appliance without having to step into the hustle and bustle of the regional mall. However, as a stand alone venture like Kmart, Sears Grand their big box outlet, came to the party late and has had difficulty coming into their own against Target and Walmart.

Who knows how this one will pan out or even if the purchase will even go through? As always the struggle for your retail dollar continues. Just make sure you get the most for it before letting go.

Candlelight Couch Potatoes

2004-11-10T11:58:00.000-08:00

Dinner for two. As parents of a three year old, Andrea and I seldom get the opportunity to go out on our own. Long gone are the romantic evenings when she comes home from work and I’ve prepared a special dinner by candlelight for the two of us. I can’t even recall the last time we went away for a weekend at the beach by ourselves doing adult things.

Last night, we organized my parents taking Tristan overnight so we could meet up for dinner and an evening alone. I met Andrea downtown near where she was working. We went to a restaurant she’s been waiting to go to since it opened four months ago. We had a nice meal. An hour later, we were on the couch at home watching T.V. with our notebooks on our laps doing work.

It was 9:30 at night. Our son was gone for the night and we were watching TV like a couple of old people. We so rarely have time as a couple I guess we didn’t know what to do with ourselves. Ah, well it was still a nice night and we didn’t have to worry about him walking in on us in the middle of the night. Even if we were in bed by 10:30.

Blockbuster Games: Halo 2

2004-11-09T09:31:00.000-08:00

Halo 2 is being released today. For those of you who haven’t followed the adventures of Master Chief, first person shooters, Xbox, or the gaming universe in general, Halo 2 is the most highly anticipated Xbox game release. The media frenzy and fan anticipation for this game makes the race for the presidency pale by comparison. While the first Halo has sold more than 4 million copies, Halo 2 has already had 1.5 million preorders giving it legs to perhaps hit the 5 million mark. Clearly, this game will help bring Xbox closer to having a profitable year. An achievement that in itself shouldn’t be overlooked by business pundits who have been forecasting a dark days ahead for the fledgling console company.

Video games are steadily marching towards being the next blockbuster medium perhaps eventually overtaking Hollywood big screen productions. The budgets for the most popular of games are similar to that of their silver screen counterparts. Will Smith and Keanu Reeves are just as likely to star in a video game as they are in a motion picture now that actors are voicing many of the top games. The world of gaming is clearly changing. There is excitement in gaming releases that all but the largest of blockbuster movies have a difficult time achieving. And while, games are expensive at $50 a pop a night out at the movies isn’t far off and that’s only for two hours of entertainment. A video game on the other hand should at least eat up ten hours of your life. Clearly more value for your entertainment dollar.

So, while it may seem strange that a video game like Halo 2 is getting more press than any of the movies out currently in theaters, it’s clear that times are changing and the roles of movies and video games may be reversing. Watch out, because then instead of seeing games based upon movies, you’ll see Hollywood making movies out of video games. Too late.

Sticky Floor Blues

2004-11-08T08:06:00.000-08:00

Thank god for the Incredibles.

Since the day Tristan was born my wife and I have been trying to get him to watch movies on the big screen. Our first attempt was when he was a few weeks old. To us, it seemed like a good idea and besides we wouldn’t know until we tried. We didn’t know a newborn could make that much noise. We stuck it out longer than the rest of the auditorium would’ve preferred before I ended up in the hall so Andrea could finish the movie. That being a no go, so we tried again a year later. Surely, that would work. A one year old should be able to sit still, hang out in his car seat and maybe take a nap.

Nope, that didn’t work so well either. I spent the rest of Harry Potter and the whatever, in the hall while everyone else finished the movie. When he turned two we thought we had it made. 730 days of socialization and maturity clearly had to make its mark on a kid, by this point there was no reason why he couldn’t watch a kids movie, he was doing it at home. Turns out he likes watching movies at home for the same reasons I do and didn’t much care for having to sit in his seat, be quiet and not be able to pause the movie to go to the bathroom.

He enjoyed Shrek 2 a few months back but a little over half way decided it was time to go rebuild an engine in the parking lot. With a lot of cajoling we convinced him to stick around, and luckily the rest of the kids in the theater were making more noise than him.

Then finally it happened. Our world has changed forever; we can take Tristan to the movies. He sat through the entire movie and hardly said a word. Thank God for the Incredibles and Pixar, without them I’d never be able to spend $40 on buttered popcorn, sticky floors and a movie I could enjoy at home for 17.99 in six months time.

The Scifi Peacock

2004-11-07T07:44:00.000-08:00

When the Scifi channel first launched in way back in 1992 I was ecstatic. Finally a channel for science fiction lovers. There were already plenty of cooking, automotive, history, travel and music channels. Did science fiction deserve any less of a place in our couch potato lives?

Fast forward 12 years and I’m still waiting for a science fiction channel. Instead of getting a channel devoted to all the best programming science fiction lovers want, we have the Scifi channel. Of course you can find reruns of the original Star Trek and the occasional Battlestar Galactica, and every once and while a well produced mini-series. The problem is the channel isn’t very cutting edge and aside from Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis (which incidentally, originally came from Showtime) their original programming sucks. Instead of giving us science fiction, there are plenty of idiots trying to find ghosts, aliens and long dead aunts.

At the heart of the matter, Scifi channel is owned by NBC. In an effort to make up for their past science fiction programming disasters, namely canceling the original Star Trek and decision they will never live down, they are attempting to give science fiction a home of its own. The problem is NBC has never been that great at science fiction or truly cutting edge television. (That may not be entirely fair, but I don’t feel like being charitable at the moment. NBC has all but thrown away their Must See TV leaving us little to nothing left to watch on the Peacock.)

So, why am I surprised there isn’t one originally produced, decent space fiction series on Scifi channel? Why am I surprised that the one truly shining star of a show, cutting edge in the extreme, was canceled? In case you don’t realize, I’m talking about Farscape. Sure the channel has had a few successes in the last 12 years: Dune and Children of Dune; Farscape: Peacekeeper Wars; and most probably a successful return of Battlestar Galactica. Still, these successes are few and far between. When most of their programming is sub par reruns from other channels and original programming that isn’t really science fiction they can’t claim success, at least not to this science fiction fan.

Here we go again

2004-11-04T15:56:00.000-08:00

As promised the J Marcus Publications set of columns will ramp up into full gear beginning November 8th, 2004. With the new editorial staff the columns will be able to focus on their individual topics and provide a timely dose of information and entertainment. We’ve brought on board some highly qualified and extremely talented individuals who will work tirelessly to bring you the best, if not a slightly irreverent look at Electronics, Games, Movies, Travel and much more. We appreciate all the support we’ve received from our supporters and look forward to an amazing new beginning, again.

Election Day American

2004-11-02T15:29:00.000-08:00

The election will be decided today. A 120 million voters will have their ballots counted and their voices heard on a number of issues and candidates, including President. This election season I’ve kept my mouth shut, at least in my column here. I have an opinion, don’t we all, and I enjoy politics and issues. For my part, I was a little tired of all the opinions and the non-stop media onslaught of ads and candidates. So, I didn’t contribute to the mass media ramblings and left the blathering to the professionals.

However, here we are, Election Day and I’m happy to proclaim I’m proud to be an American. For all the mixed emotions from the rest of the world on Americans in general I for one, as an American am proud to be part of this amazing country. Most especially on this day. No matter which side of the partisan politics you fall at the end of the day, we are all Americans. We can fight tooth and nails to get our point across and for someone to listen to our righteous beliefs, but when the election is over we are Americans.

Over the coming days and weeks, there will be a lot said about the split in this country between Democrats and Republicans. More so before the day is through we will see a larger split between the Northeast coast states, west coast states and the rest of America. It is part of the ever changing landscape of politics and in regional ideologies. Still, when the ballots have been cast and the fervor dies down citizens don’t need to take up an armed insurrection against the government. The majority has won the day and everyone else has to calm down and do a better job of convincing the rest they were correct. But no one has to revolt against the government as in so many other countries in the world.

I’m proud to be an American no matter the outcome of this election, so long as all the votes are counted and the people’s voice is heard.

Decisions are made by those who show up. Don’t forget to Vote.

Holiday Music Scrooge

2004-11-01T16:16:00.000-08:00

Halloween has come and gone. Heralding the start of the Holiday Season merchants are free to throw caution to the wind and decorate every square inch of their space with all the trappings of Christmas. The pumpkins have barely begun to rot and already retailers have their Christmas signing up begging for your holiday dollar.

I used to be in retail myself, my wife and many of your friends are still, so I understand the need. However, there is still a bit of me, the average stay at home sucker side of me that wonders if it isn’t a bit much. Shoppers are still going to spend their money. They have gifts to buy and it all has to be done by December 24th, so is it really necessary to kick off the hoopla so early?

I don’t really know. I’d venture to say that for as many people who question how long the Christmas season feels, there’d be just as many people wondering what happened if no one put up their Christmas goodies until after Thanksgiving. In the end, it doesn’t really bother me. Except for one thing. Any store that starts their Christmas music this early won’t get much of my money. I refuse to go through sixty days of jingle bells and the Celine Dion Christmas Album.

Star Wars: May the DVD be with you

2004-10-06T16:40:00.000-07:00

Star Wars Trilogy DVD

The long awaited release of the ultimate science fiction trilogy onto the DVD format has been a topic of main stream press and the fan community at large. Everyone has an opinion about this release, mostly about George Lucas’ decision to release only an enhanced Special Edition that was originally released to theaters in 1997. Again, George Lucas has been tinkering with his movies an attempt to bring it closer to his imagining. And that is where true die hard fans lose there minds.

Forget the fact that he warned everyone when the last set of VHS copies of the original film was released, that this would be the last chance to purchase the original film as seen in the theaters. (If you were wise enough to buy the Widescreen that is.)

Forget the fact that these are his movies. Yeah, I said it. These are his movies. He envisioned them, worked damn hard with a lot of people to make it happen, and footed the bill himself so he could retain ownership. We the fans made them popular and gave him the chance to keep entertaining us with the Star Wars universe, but he owns it and can do what he likes with it.

But what you can’t forget, what’s undeniable is that these movies look better. Don’t take my word for it, and don’t go by your memory of what the movies look like, pop your cassette into the player and watch the movie. You can’t deny how pitiful the film looks on VHS all these many years later. The Greedo Solo debate over who shot first aside, Lucas put a lot of stuff into this edition that was sorely lacking and cleaned up a lot of effects that are showing their age.

Grab Return of the Jedi and watch the Rancor fight with Luke. The bluescreen effects are quite noticeable, especially when the door slams down on his head. Now, the movie looks and sounds great. I cranked up my surround sound, stuck the trilogy on my projector and was awestruck at how good the movie looked and sounded. Tie-fighters roaring through the room and explosions that shook the floor brought back a touch of what it was like to watch the movies on the big screen.

We’ll leave the debate on the actual scene changes for another time, but these DVD’s are the definitive DVD collection. One in only a handful of titles that actually make use of most of the technical improvements in owning a DVD player.

Damn it, now I don’t have any other reason to keep my Laserdisc player. Andrea will happily give that one away.

Who's cooking the shoe?

2004-10-05T14:02:00.000-07:00

This morning Tristan got up at five in the morning right after Andrea left for the airport. While I dozed back into dreamland after saying goodbye to Andrea, Tristan was otherwise engaged cooking his shoes in the microwave.

I awoke to set of beady little eyes staring at me and a strange smell in the house. Jumping up I ran downstairs thinking he had touched the stove and started a fire. No. The fire was in the microwave. There it was open with his melted shoes sitting on the glass dish in the microwave. A puddle of goo coated the bottom of the dish but it was the thick smell of plastic seeping into every nook in cranny in the house that was the real problem. After burning my hand on the plate taking it outside, I jerked open every window in the house to try and stop the noxious fumes from getting any worse. If they did we were going to have to evacuate the house because I was starting to see spots in front of my eyes.

He played like he didn’t know what he had done and to a certain degree I think that is true. I think he knew what he was doing right up until the moment the shoes actually had fire running up the sides of them and so he opened the door and tried to blow it out. Obviously that didn’t work and he came to get me. Definitely a unique if not somewhat creative way on his part to get me up at 5 am.

Being a stay at home father I don’t have the natural instincts that stay at home mothers seem. My gender hasn’t had countless millennia to hone maternal instincts and coping skills for dealing daily with these occurrences. Of course, we make sure and lock our many household poisons in cabinets out of reach and never let them cross the street without hold our hands. But who knew that a three year old would test out the integrity of his shoes in a microwave oven. I clearly didn’t.

Built-in bookcases for the bathroom

2004-10-04T14:32:00.000-07:00

Reading in the bathroom

One of those dirty little topics no one wants to admit too, like farting in bed or the five second rule on dropped food. When visiting a friend’s or neighbor’s home, will you find magazines to read or will it be perfectly decorated and pristine? In my little world, there seems to be wide berth in tastes as far as restroom reading material.

My parents have a virtual library in their bathroom complete with at least 20-30 magazines from a dozen or so different publishers, a handful of books most notably the widely popular Bathroom Readers Series along with the last remnants of the Sunday paper. In their defense this public bathroom is the only one on the ground floor and it also serves as their personal bathroom.

My grandfather usually only has a newspaper handy in his public restroom. My brother and his wife’s house don’t keep any reading material at all, but there are lots of Anne Geddes pictures on the wall. This is about the same for our friends Dave and Aja except it isn’t Anne Geddes decorating. My mother-laws house doesn’t normally have anything for reading, unless I’m visiting of course.

I can’t tell you what would be found in any of their personal bathrooms or if they even spend their time on the throne going over their papers. For our part around here, the guest bathrooms don’t have any reading material in them. We keep the downstairs for guests, and don’t really expect any of our guests to stick around long enough in the bathroom to need entertainment. Especially since it’s only five feet from the kitchen.

I will admit to being an avid fan of reading in the toilet room. I’ve completed more books while otherwise engaged than most people read in their lifetimes. If I had my way, their would be built-in bookcases for bathroom books, that way you don’t have to mix your collection or search for something to read at the last minute. My wife is of course strictly set against this and she’s not too fond of the three novels sitting on the back of the toilet and the five magazines propped up in the corner by the garbage can.

I can’t be alone on this one, but I think I’ll be hard pressed to find many people willing to admit how much they read on the toilet. Because then we’d be forced to think about how much time we spend there as well. Enough to write a novel perhaps.

Deetoo

2004-10-02T11:16:00.000-07:00

Star Wars has been unleashed. No longer relegated to imprisonment in my study R2D2 and the rest of the toys from the Star Wars world have been given new life by my son, Tristan. He’s only 3 but he has gone crazy for the galaxy far, far away. Flying the Millennium Falcon on strafing runs in his toy room, mowing down invaders to the toy houses with their little people, he sees an entire world in the minds eye of his imagination. Does a father proud.

R2D2 is his favorite character by far.

“Deetwoo- Deetwoo- Deetwoo” he runs through the house screaming, waiting for us to turn on the newly released DVD trilogy. Pulling his D2 helmet over his head (an old large plastic flower pot) as he goes beep-beeping into furniture waiting for the movie to start.

There are those who probably think that three is too young to be watching these movies. Too much violence and all that jazz. If my alternative is Spongebob, the Wiggles or God save us all, Barney, I’ll take my chances with an Anakin wannabe.

Besides, who doesn’t like little Deetwoo.

Magazines: Bathroom or coffee table reading

2004-10-01T10:52:00.000-07:00

A waiting room at home. How many magazines do you read?

Magazines come in all shapes, sizes, and flavors. You name the lifestyle and there are at least a dozen competing mags on the market. More and more American’s coffee tables don magazine collections typical to most doctors’ offices. Averaging 4.95 a pop on the newsstand consumers jump at the chance for 70% off for the subscription. According to recent studies in the publishing industry most a majority of households have on average 5 magazine subscriptions.

How many subscriptions do we really need? Or for that matter are these magazines really worth our time. While I might feel that book prices are outrageously high, it just isn’t so when compared to the price of an off the rack magazine. Why are we paying to increase the advertising revenue of these companies? With advertisements on nearly every other page they should be paying us to read their mags.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m part of the problem. I’m part of the industry. I write for magazines and get paid for my work. It’s a living. Still, I question the business and the cost to consumers even with subscription level pricing. Television is one product, that for all intensive purposes is free because of advertising revenue. Why should the magazine industry be any different?

Just think about these things the next time you fork over 5 bucks at the airport newsstand, or a telemarketer calls you at night to sell you subscriptions.

Cell Phone on the brain

2004-09-30T10:50:00.000-07:00

Cell Phones are everywhere. It seems as if everyone has one, and sometimes two, and they can’t stop talking. Obsessed with being in contact with friends, loved ones, business contacts, the babysitter and telemarketers people are on the phone in line at the supermarket, getting gas, in theaters right till the opening credits, even while out with friends. People are talking to the “someone else’s” in their lives more than the one sitting right in front of them, and it’s driving me insane.

I’m probably not the first to say it but I’ll probably be the most vocal. What the hell is everyone thinking? Aside from the ranting and raving I could do about the love affair with the cell phone in general, cell phone etiquette or rather the lack of it, makes me almost lose it.

I watched a woman at a department store pick out her clothes, go into the dressing room, and proceed to the checkout all while on the phone. Watching her across the way, I could see the cashier went through the entire purchasing process while the woman was still on the phone. It was one of the rudest things I’ve seen being taken as common place. We’ve all seen rude people doing rude and crass things but usually someone takes note of it or calls them on it. Here, it was just one more customer in a long line of them for the cashier. No one else in line seemed to even notice because a couple of them were on phones themselves.

Do we really want to hear about Jason not asking Susan because he’d really sleeping with Cindy but he would do Katherine if only he’d break up with Steve? They don’t even try to talk in a hushed voice, walking around as if they were in a special sound proof bubble they talk about private, intimate, and confidential things without a second thought to the people around them. Corporate America want to know what your competition is doing, just listen to the conversations of their employees as they are grocery shopping.

If more people would think twice about whether it really is necessary to call anyone at anytime, or be gotten a hold of for that matter, is really important to their lives or businesses. Has the world really changed so much? I can’t believe anyone is claiming bankruptcy because they weren’t able to talk to someone on the phone at a particular instance.

Am I the only person who seems to care about how blatant this has all become? I wish I had a device that could scramble cell phone signals if they came within five feet of me. Not to do any great damage, but to protect me from their blatant disregard for my space. Step to close and your calls get dropped. Unfortunately, a device like that would be banned by the FCC; they protect the public’s right to be assholes on phones. Of course, you won’t find that in their official charter.

Like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, there are more and more people converted to the cause of the cell phone. One day I will look up and I’ll be the only one left who isn’t indoctrinated into believing it is my God given right to talk to anyone, at anytime, as loud as I like about whatever topic I damn well please. The day that happens, no one will take the time to read this column. And once they do discover this subversive anti-establishment writing, there will be a knock at my door soon after.

Sorry, gotta go there’s someone at the door.

2004-09-29T18:46:00.000-07:00

National Do Not Call Registry

Telemarketers. We all hate them. I could rant and rave about being bothered during dinner or while watching TV, all for the sake of being sold some whatchamacallit. Undoubtedly so could you. There are devices for blocking and zapping unwanted phone calls, most everyone has some form of caller id, and still the calls seem to get through. You can tell them to remove you from their list. There are even laws with stiff penalties for those who continue to call, if you’ve got the time and patience to log who’s been calling and follow it up with a lawsuit.

Recently I instituted a sure fire way to get back at the solicitors. It won’t stop them from calling but it will surely make them think twice about calling back. This evening for instance: at around 5:40 the first call came in from a company wanting to know about my insurance situation. Snapping up my clipboard from beside the phone I set to work making the solicitor work for his no. I took the lead in the conversation by asking questions.

Who am I speaking to?
What company do you represent?
Where is the company headquarters located?
Where is your call center located?
What is the phone number from where you are calling?
All questions solicitors are required to answer by law.

When he asked why I was curious I explained I was taking a survey, and since he called to ask me some questions I’m sure he’d be willing to answer some in turn. He tried to push past by questions and work in his product, but I shut him down.

“How long have you worked for ---?” He wasn’t sure why I needed to know that. “Well, if your trying to sell me something I’d like to have an idea of how long you’ve worked for the company.” And so on, and so forth. This went on, for about five or six minutes before he said goodnight after I asked him to remove me from his list. The next call didn’t even make it past the required questions before hanging up.

This may seem like a lot of work and effort on my part. Only took a few minutes to write up the list of questions and put them on a clipboard. Yes, it does take a little while to talk to these people but I have to do that anyways when I answer the phone. I might as well have a little bit of fun while I’m at it.

And at the end of the day I’ll have documentation I could use in court if I ever feel the need. It feels good to have a little power over my phone again and now I’m not dreading answering the phone at 6:20pm. It might just be another respondent for my questionnaire.

Down with Rebates

2004-09-28T10:42:00.000-07:00

Mail-In Rebates

Viva! Revolution! Grab your pitch forks. Stoke the bonfire. Take that ole’ guillotine out of the basement and set it up in the town square. The mob must unite to topple this marketing nightmare known as mail in rebates. Burn ‘em. Burn ‘em to dust. We can’t allow this scam to continue any longer.

Consumers have swallowed the mail in rebate scam hook, line and sinker. Instead of looking for the best sales price consumers are actually counting rebates into their buying decisions. Never mind that 80% of all rebates go unfilled. Or that those that do have to wait six to eight weeks to get their money back. Rebates are not good for the consumer. They allow companies to reap the benefits of our cold hard cash until they deem all the proper paperwork has been filled out.

What happened to the good old sale?

Consumers seem content to fork over $399 today only to wait on the promise of their money returned. I think I’d rather pay less at the checkout counter. Wouldn’t you? Perhaps if we all banned together and stopped buying products based on mail in rebates then they’d get the idea. If a product is going to be cheaper make it cost less today, not jump through fiery hoops to get the money.

Or at the very least offer the rebates online so we can fill out the forms quickly and easily. No, I like the no mail in rebate better. On with the revolution.

Keep your photos online for all to see

2004-09-27T10:37:00.000-07:00

PhotoSite - Share photos and create online photo albums for free - includes photo software

Digital Camera's have taken the world of electronics by storm. Consumers have quickly adopted this relatively new technology. The idea of having a photo lab in your own home is appealing to a great many photo enthusiasts. Even Grandma and Grandpa America have taken to digital photos in both the taking and the receiving.

With the increase in resolution of cameras quickly moving from the early days of 1 Mega pixel cameras to more than 8 Mega pixels, the file size of the average picture has grown considerably. Some E-mail services limit bandwidth and file sizes. Download times can reach into the hours on a dial up connection.

The solution, for many is off site photo hosting. This isn't a new concept. Kodak has been offering this since they first started making digital disks for consumers to take home. The idea is simple. Download your photos to a website, setup how you'd like them to be laid out, and send the address to your friends and relatives. No more clogged e-mail boxes. No more attachments that for security reasons should never be opened anyway. Those interested can visit the site at their leisure, download the pictures they like, and in most cases print them out for their own albums.

There are numerous services available both as pay sites and free. The terms of use are different with each of them: limiting bandwidth, storage space, unique webpage layout, personalized web addresses, and a host of other services.

Homestead, the point and click website hosting company has ventured into photo hosting with their new site, photosite.com. A free service that is simple to use and offers speedy uploads. They provide custom URL's, flexible album creation, privacy controls and camera photo connectivity. There are also thousands of styles to choose from when selecting album layout, frame and color schemes to allow for endless personalization. There is a simple editing tool function built in for cropping, brightening, or to tint and correct redeye. Add captions to the photos with customizable fonts and best of all Photosite claims upload speeds 10X faster than e-mail. And did I mention it is free.

Eventually, the free basic service will move to $4.99 a month after the trial period. As a Homestead customer I under a trial period but it isn't clear how long this will last. Still, I recommend checking this one out at least for the free period to see if this is actually for you.

There is a pay version for professionals and power users allowing for unlimited photos, ad-free web pages, and a personal domain call photosite deluxe. This service is $7.99/Month or $69.99/Year.

Death of DVD

2004-09-26T10:32:00.000-07:00

Sony shines light on Blu-ray DVD plans | CNET News.com

Format Wars

In the ever changing entertainment market new technology is the lifeblood that ensures future profitability. We all know the story of VHS and Betamax, DVD and Divx, not to mention the hoards of other competing entertainment formats that have come out over the years.

DVD has been a huge success for businesses and consumers. Providing some of the best digital entertainment money can buy. Enhanced sound and picture to match televisions that until recently never saw their specs pushed to the limit.

DVD is quickly approaching a decade of supremacy on our media shelves. Some people have only just begun to get rid of their VHS collections. And in the bowels of the entertainment industry a rumbling is beginning. They are hoping to catch up with what many technophiles already know, DVD doesn't have the level of quality necessary to match output with the resolution on High Definition television sets. Rather traditional DVD discs don't have the capacity necessary to hold a HD quality movie.

The movie companies know that once the number of HD TV's move past the early adopters, consumers are going to be looking for content. Satellite and Cable companies have already been scrambling to provide HD programming. The studios don't want to be left out in the cold when that day comes.

Of course, every electronics company wants to own the licensing on whatever technology is used. Sony backed Betamax, minidisc, and host of other less than popular and ultimately failed formats. While they have been successful with a host of other technologies this time they aren't leaving things to chance. As one of the nine founding companies promoting the new Blu-ray Disc technology Sony is certain they are backing a winner.

HD DVD is a rival format also seeking to come out on top. Who knows who will win? In this very competitive market it is likely we won't ever see any product released from studios until it is decided. Companies are loath to have their catalog on competing formats the disasters of which some learned during the DVD vs. Divx days not so long ago.

Technical specifics on both formats are hard to come by. So for now, we wait with baited breath to see who comes out ahead. Actually, most people don't know about this little battle and it won't really matter until Winter 2005 when studios begin to release content and consumer electronics companies put their boxes on the shelves.

Democrat, Republican? Know the real difference.

2004-09-25T10:29:00.000-07:00

MSN Encarta - How Do You Tell a Democrat from a Republican?

The Presidential election has moved into high gear. The debates are on, lawn signs have sprouted with wild abandon, and the money spent airing one election commercial would be the equivalent to winning the lottery for the rest of us. Political conversation heats up at this time when there are only two real choices for President: Republican or Democrat. Invariably these conversations pit various people with their never-ending platitudes of right and wrong against one another. Moreover, during the debates the topic will invariably lead to the core beliefs of both Democrats and Republicans being discussed ad nausea. Before you open your mouth and make a mistake, make sure and read the above-abbreviated information on the history of both parties.

In a world where information overload is a daily reality people still find plenty of opportunities to be wrong. And when I say wrong, I mean wrong, not a matter of opinion- A retort trodden into the ground by those having no better way to make their point. When facts are erroneously construed and become the basis of incorrect thinking, these opinions are not worthy to be spoken. Sure, they have the right to be stupid but why do we extol the moronic and sophomoric.

So, get your information correct before you form those opinions you have such great right to blather on about. Read a book. Find a good website with real information. Pick up an encyclopedia or a dictionary. Never stop learning. Instead of quoting one-liners from the front of the newspaper, get the real scoop. Mistakes will be made. At least it won't be because of bad information.

And please remember to vote. It does matter even if it doesn’t always feel like it makes a damn bit of difference.

Drinking Driving and Cell Phones

2004-09-24T10:21:00.000-07:00

Insure.com - auto insurance - The most dangerous foods to eat while driving

Watch what you eat while driving in the car. According to this article on Insure.com, based on surveys by insurance companies and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), eating and driving is a dangerous mix. Does drinking a cup of coffee cause more accidents than a bottle of beer? Will it soon become illegal to eat and drive at the same time?

For the time being drivers are still free to zoom down the freeway at sixty-five juggling cell phones, coffee cups, and scanning the radio or shuffling CD's. Whether the law should or shouldn't infringe on our right to drive and eat may never become a serious topic for public debate. Aside from the fact, that most American's don't like laws that interfere with their own lives, business might have the last word. With many companies profit margins being based on the consumption of food and beverages while driving, not to mention the number of electronic gadgets for our cars there is no reason to believe a law will ever be passed curtailing distracted drivers.

Sure, a handful of communities have passed laws against driving and talking on a cell phone. It's a long way off before it'll become illegal to drink a Tall mocha Latte while operating our two-ton mechanical conveyance. So eat up in the fast lane, don't forget to put the cell phone down long enough to give your fellow travelers the bird, and flip through your satellite radio stations to your hearts content, their won't be any sirens or flashing lights coming to get you today.

Megacorporations

2004-09-23T10:20:00.000-07:00

CNN.com

Here is a crash course in the world of business conglomerates. Test your knowledge to see if you really know who owns who. The conventional wisdom of scifi pundits argue that the world will one day only have a handful of really powerful companies who own everything seems to be drawing closer every day.

A couple of my favorites are listed below. Who would've guessed the link between the New York Post with FOX television, the TV Guide and the Los Angeles Dodgers. Viacom has its hands in a bunch of cookie jars owning everything from Blockbuster to MTV, CBS, and Nickelodeon, Paramount and UPN, along with Showtime, Black Entertainment television, Country Music Television, VH1, and Comedy Central. Talk about a powerhouse of entertainment. Seems like you can't surf through the cable channels without hitting at least a dozen Viacom ventures. Less of an odd duck is Cheetos, Doritos and all the rest under the Frito-Lay banner being linked to Gatorade, Quaker Oatmeal, Pasta Roni as being a part of the Pepsico Corporation. Sony pretty much sticks with the world of electronics and entertainment, but who would've figured Sony Life Insurance.

And this is just enough to wet your whistle. There's a dozen more companies poised to rule the world. Given enough time the pundits might turn out to be right. Then god help us when our mortgage loan is help by Mickey Mouse.

Death to late charges

2004-09-22T10:18:00.000-07:00

Netflix

Sure watching the latest new release from the rental store can be fun but everything else associated with it can be a real drag. Friday night standing in line at Blockbuster isn't what most of us had in mind while counting the hours till the start of our long awaited weekend. Even worse can be the torment of having to return the movie. At least now, we don't have to worry about the 'Please be kind and rewind' mantra with the acceptance of DVD. Even the best of us have returned a movie late and had to pay the late charge. Rental stores couldn't turn a profit without them. Not me. At least not any longer.

I'm one of the devoted converts to the ways of Netflix. If you're not familiar with this online rental store check out the website. Basically, you pay a monthly charge and get to rent as many movies as you can watch in that time. You're allowed a set number of DVD's checked out at any one time. But wait, this is the best part, no late fees. Keep the movie as long as you like and never get charged another penny. When you're done with the DVD send it back in a prepaid envelope and wait for the next one to show up in the mail.

As a DVD reviewer I subscribe to the 5 movie membership. This way each time I open up the mailbox there is another movie waiting. Just looking at the cost to rent a DVD at your average rental store this membership more than pays for itself. Personally, I average a little more than 5 movies a week. Netflix is great. All the movies I rent...Well that's another story.

If you pay any attention at all you probably already know I don't like many things. Most of what is advertised doesn't live up to expectations. This is one time where I feel perfectly justified raving about this service. Check them out and enjoy your movies late fee free.

(Recently, Netflix increased their rates and due to their increasing the 8-out membership at a higher level than the other memberships I’ve dropped to the 5-out program. This is my own way of protesting since my letters to the company fell on deaf ears. Still, I love their service and as long as things remain status quo I’ll continue as a customer.)

Alternative to Internet Explorer

2004-09-21T10:04:00.000-07:00

mozilla.org

Tired of Internet Explorer or Microsoft products in general. Maybe, you're like millions of Internet users worldwide who hate Spam and Pop-ups. If so, then clearly, it's time for a change. And Mozilla might just do the trick. It worth at least a visit to their website to learn what this open source Internet Suite can do for you.

Currently, I'm working with Mozilla 1.5 instead of the standard Windows products. Primarily, I'm using it for e-mail and browsing. The Pop-up blocker has worked seamlessly since I installed it. As well as the Spam filter software. I receive well over a hundred e-mails a day from readers, friends, colleagues, and my share of unsolicited commercial crap. Thus far, it has worked splendidly.

The Mozilla browser has a great tab browsing function allowing multiple pages to be run from tabs located around the border of the browser. Saving relevant bookmarks allows users to pull up a host of web pages with the push of one button. Instead of having a handful browsers each running separately as with Internet Explorer, these tabbed pages are easy to access.

At this point, my only concern is over the speed of the browser. It does its job but it doesn't seem to work as smoothly as Internet Explorer. With Explorer I rarely see the image placeholder while a page is instantaneously downloading. I can't say the same for the Mozilla browser. This may be an issue with my set up or a bug they are working on, only time will tell at this point. However, as I said, it does its job. If you are a power Internet user this is worth a test drive.
Firefox is another alternative if you don’t want the full suite of Mozilla and are willing to test out the latest enhancements to the browser. Personally, I’ve found Firefox to have fewer issues and move faster than Mozilla. This may be a fluke so I’m going to run it through a series of tests to make sure. I’ll report back on Technovations in the next few weeks.

Fun with numbers

2004-09-20T10:02:00.000-07:00

Emode.com - The Super IQ Test

Have a little time on your hands? Your wife, girlfriend, friend, father, mother, husband call you stupid recently? You know you're smarter than you sound, but how do you prove your mental strength? Emode.com has the answer. The IQ test. Tap your intellectual strengths; get a personalized report detailing the inner workings of your mind and a fancy score to boot.

Seriously, this is a great little tool for gauging where you sit on the ladder of human intelligence. PhD's around the world have placed a great deal of stock in the validity of an IQ test. You've met these people at cocktail parties smoothly dropping their IQ score into polite dinner conversation. Now, you too can join the crowd. Or at least learn to avoid the subject all together.

Now, without getting into scores, I'll say I took this test recently and had fun. A few pointers before you sit down to do this exercise. Turn off the TV, put the kids to bed, and don't take it too seriously. The test is straightforward enough. Answer the questions get a score permanently placing you into an intellectual box you'll be straining to get out of for the rest of your life. Argg. No, really, as I said, this is for fun. Take the test. You may just learn something about yourself. Just don't talk about your score at any cocktail parties or I'll have to visit your house with a baseball bat.

(Author's disclaimer: All references to violence and/or physical harm of any kind should be taken in context and not as a factual representation of future acts. Take it from experience, if he plans to clobber the garden gnomes perched on your front porch, you'll never see him coming.)

A mouse is just a mouse.

2004-09-19T09:55:00.000-07:00

I love electronics. You name the gadget and I probably like it, own it or would like to own it. From DVD players and Home Theater to Laptops and MP3 players, I devour everything I can on all sorts of electronic equipment. Lately, I've been taking on more assignments reviewing technology so I've been able to purchase more of the latest and greatest in the tech industry. Almost daily, and much to the dismay of my wife, I find a new device to bring home. Yesterday, in fact, I went out and purchased the Logitech Wireless Trackball to replace my mouse.

Trackball? You might think I'm crazy. Most people use mice and they seem to do the trick. Until recently, I never even thought about making the switch. Years ago my brother-in-law had one and I hated it. Rolling my fingers around on this little ball making the cursor run around the screen didn’t feel right. Like many, I liked my mouse. The alternatives weren't much of alternatives. Trackballs? Pen Tablets? Give me a regular mouse. Nothing fancy, just something to move my cursor around and get my work done.

Then my wrist started to hurt. My arm hurt thinking about working on my computer. So, I began to do some research. Wireless. Optical. These two innovations added a great deal to my standard roller ball three dollar mouse. After reading every review I could get my hands on, and spending hours playing at the computer store with every model in stock, I bought a new mouse. Then a second. Then a third.

While they each had their own bit of 'Wow' factor built in, after a week or two of working with them my wrist still hurt.

My wife doesn't quite get my obsession with electronics. She understands this latest Mouse Crusade even less. And she probably won't be excited when I get into replacing our antiquated keyboards. For now, I've just started using the trackball. As with most of the new input devices, it was easy to install and Windows XP quickly recognized it. The Logitech Trackball is USB standard and comes with a PS/2 adapter. Right off, the first thing I found useful was the number of extra buttons, eight in all; each customizable with a wide range of options to program them. Scrolling on the Web is nice, and the page forward and back buttons come in handy.

Other than playing games, the trackball has become my preferred means of working with a computer. It's quick response time and ease of use during prolonged surfing sessions is far superior to a standard mouse. If you use a computer for more than an hour or two a day, I'd recommend giving a trackball a try. Otherwise, it probably isn't worth trying to get used to one just for intermediate use.

Mr. Dad or Almost Retired?

2004-09-18T09:53:00.000-07:00

stay at home father

This statement of fact has become a buzz phrase of late. Only a couple of years ago when I first became a dad there were only a few men staying at home with their kids. An anomaly to be sure. Why is God's name would anyone want to stay at home with the kids? A large part of the male understanding of being a man is wrapped up tightly with being a families breadwinner. Going from the head of household to the "Woman" can be a bit difficult. As men, our egos need stroking and you certainly don't get that when you're wiping a baby's dirty ass. Except, right now, Stay at Home Father's are In Vogue to be sure. Their doing the talk show circuit, writing books, and making websites devoted to this fab new idea in alternative families.

When Andrea, my wife, and I decided to make this change in our family arrangement we weren't going out of our way to be part of the in crowd. For us, it seemed to make more sense than going the conventional route. She had a career she loved, and I was starting a new career that allowed me to be at home. The only other alternative was for him to go into day care. Even if it wasn't extremely expensive it ultimately wasn't the way we wanted to raise our child. He is our responsibility. We shouldn't pay someone else to take care of the day to day raising of our kid. Spending weekends and an hour or two in the evening on weeknight actually doing hands on parenting, doesn't sound right for us. Thus, I became Mister Dad.

This what I like to call myself, Mister Dad. Sounds better than all of the other alternatives running rampant in the media. Mister Mom gained national credence when Michael Keaton lost his job and stayed at home with his kids doing battle with the vacuum and his sanity. No offence to all the mothers who are at home, but I'm no woman. I may stay at home, and take on many of the responsibilities we men have expected of our women for generations, but I'm not a woman. If a woman can do the job of a man in the work world and be afforded respect, then a man should be able to do the same in what has been a woman's world.

Recently, there are a bunch of idiots who call themselves Stay at home Dad's, or SAHD for short. While I agree I'm a stay at home Dad, I'm not SAD. We don't need a title. Or a special badge. All I'd like to see is a little respect. Being a parent isn't easy, staying at home alone all day with kids isn't easy, and it doesn't much matter if your a woman or man. Neither of the sexes get a rule book or a manual on being a good parent. I like to think it comes from hard work, determination, and lots of patience.

Your hair smellls like butter

2004-09-17T04:28:00.000-07:00

Last night I got a rare treat. For most of this week, I’ve been up all night leveling up my character in Fable. The game is entirely addicting and I haven’t been able to put it down. Doesn’t hurt that my wife has been out of town this week, so I get to do all the things I can’t normally do, like staying up all night playing Xbox.

Last night Andrea came home and I actually planned to get some sleep. Unfortunately it just wasn’t to be. For dinner, I’d given Tristan, my three year old a baked potato for dinner. Straightening up the house I’d neglected all week, I let my son eat his dinner while watching his favorite cartoons. A few minutes later, I came back in to find him next to the counter with his hands dipping into the five-pound tub of butter. Scooping handfuls into his mouth, he screamed when I grabbed it away from him. A brand new tub and he’d eaten about a third of it.

If he can drink rubbing alcohol than I guess 2 pounds of butter isn’t much of a stretch. Of course, if you think that is gross, it’s much worse coming back up. Little did I know he was a ticking time bomb waiting to go off (Actually I knew, I just figured it come out over the next couple of days.)

The bomb exploded at 2 am Pacific coast time. Two pounds of creamy churned butter exorcized its way onto the bed sheets, pillow cases, bedspread and Andrea. Her hair seemed to soak up most of the fountain. Puke is bad, no matter what the form. But I have to say, butter is one of the grossest things to have spewed up all over you. The bedroom reeked of that buttery smell and seemed to coat our skin just from being in the same room.

Tristan doesn’t normally stay with us, except when Andrea has been gone for a bunch of days. A practice that I think may come to an abrupt halt. As well as ordering extra butter at the theater for my popcorn.

2004-09-16T01:09:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday, Fable came out for the Xbox. Typically, I review a handful of games each week. I ration out the time I spend on each one so I can write the best review I can and still not spend my entire life playing video games. This summer I haven’t had much to worry about in the way of games being so good I couldn’t put down. Summer is notoriously bad time for video game releases and this summer was abysmal. All that changed on Tuesday when I popped in Fable for the first time. The house is a mess, I haven’t slept in days, and my manuscript actually accumulated dust this week.

It serves as an excellent reminder of why I’m going to hand over some of the writing responsibilities to the writing staff. Simon and the gang are eagerly putting together some great content for the website and the columns. I’ll continue to contribute but some of the daily reviews will be handled by the staff. Beth, the newest addition to the team is eager to add her two cents worth on the latest video games.

I appreacite all of the encouraging e-mails and contact with so many loyal readers. Just remember if you don’t see something written by me for a while, it’s because I’ve been locked away playing Fable and Doom 3. Ah, the inhumanity of it all.

Life goes on

2004-09-12T23:55:00.000-07:00

September 11th came and went without much fanfare and little remembrance. My wife and I spent the evening at an outdoor concert sponsored by a local radio station. There were a few protesters with signs questioning who benefited from the 9/11 attacks. Otherwise, few talked about it. The newspaper had a couple of articles and the news lightly mentioned it, almost as if in passing.

How quickly we forget. In only a few years time we’ve gone back to life as normal, complaining about our lives, warring with our neighbors, and occasionally mentioning how much our world has changed since September 11th, 2001. That’s a little unfair. Part of life is living, and life must go on. Tragedy affects us profoundly when it happens but our ability to move forward is what gives us great resilience. It makes us a very short sided people, but capable of great things.

Has the world really changed so much in the last few years? I don’t really think so. Perhaps, that’s because I was never that naive about the way of the world. Maybe, a touch cynical but the world is what it is without putting rose-colored glasses to everything. It’s an amazing world, but one that is fraught with dangers for the blind.

There was plenty of war, death, destruction, and chaos before 9/11 we choose not to look at it. It burns our eyes and chokes our bellies with vile disgust when we think about it too much. So, the nightly news gives us pictures of tragedy always desensitizing us to the horrors and wonders of the world we live.

No, in the grand scheme of things the world hasn’t changed much at all. We still pay our taxes, go to work and school, and live our lives as best we can. We change, the world doesn’t, and yet it all stays the same.

Does that mean September 11th has no meaning, or special purpose in our lives? No. Quite the contrary, but it’s important to remember it has the meaning we give it, and whether we honor this date in history with banners, flags, parades, memorials or a simple note in one persons column makes no difference.

2004-09-11T17:03:00.000-07:00

The eternal quest to lose weight. Whether it be for health reasons or to better fit into last years jeans Americans seem to be perpetually on a diet. With the recent resurgence in low carb diets and the always-popular magical weight lose pill, dieters have more and more options for shedding those extra pounds. I’m no expert. I’m overweight. At least according to the AMA weight/height chart for my age group.

There are plenty of people who do know about dieting, doctors and medical professionals aplenty. Except most seem to put more stock in what their friends and coworkers say about diets than those who truly know better. Before you start a plan that is ultimately destined to fail do your homework, talk to your doctor, or at the very least read some of the articles in the Calorie King Library. Here you’ll find a good assortment of articles on health and weight loss, written by professionals.

The hardest part of the whole dieting craze is not coming up with a working plan, it’s sticking with and making a change in your eating habits. Breaking a habit is nearly impossible, unless it is replaced with a new one that works better. Our days are full of habits and routines, a self-replicating mechanism that makes it easier to cope with the tedium of daily activities. Without a better approach to dealing with our responses to these self-replicating mechanisms, we are destined to repeat the same habits over and over again.

Of course, this is just a long winded way of saying, do your research, find a plan that fits the lifestyle you want to have, and exchange your bad habits for ones that meet your goals and give you the life you want to have. It isn’t easy, but it’s better than the alternatives of doing nothing about your problems or constantly yo-yoing from one diet to the next.

2004-09-10T16:45:00.000-07:00

J Marcus, if you were a movie, you'd be a Suspenseful Thriller

Nothing is simple. Especially you. Like your movie match, you've got lots of plot twists, and you'd like to keep it that way. That's right, you're no open book.

Whether or not you actually lurk in the shadows, you do like to keep people in the dark sometimes. Mysterious and enigmatic, you keep people guessing. When they think they've got you figured out, you enjoy throwing a curve ball their way. Maybe it's the element of surprise that tickles your fancy. Perhaps it's the shock value. Or maybe you're just intensely private. In any case, you keep life intriguing and unpredictable. And that's what makes you such an interesting individual.

This was the assessment of Tickle.com’s personality test on what kind of a movie I’d be if I were a movie. Looking to better understand my makeup, I took a couple more of the test offered. According to the Tickle Personality tests, the Hawaiian island that best fits my personality is Maui, and I’m best suited for the newest most stylish cars currently on the market. The Maui thing I get. It’s the only island I’ve been to but it does seem to fit my personality the best. In January, we’re headed for Honolulu, so at least then I’ll have something to compare it too.

I’m not a car guy. Sure, there are cool cars out there but I’m more interested in the features in the driver’s seat than what’s under the hood. I don’t really care about what is cool, I like cars that look nice and get the job done. On that one I think the test wasn’t on base at all, but the rest are at least somewhat reflective of how I view myself. If you enjoy taking these kinds of personality tests, click on over to tickle.com and try it out for yourself. It’s just good fun.

2004-09-09T22:24:00.000-07:00

$1 for your first 5 DVDs
A penny a book

Oh, what amazing deals Columbia House, Scifi Book Club and the rest offer if you join up. All you have to do is pay shipping and handling, and agree to purchase at least 2-5 more items within the next 1-3 years. Not a bad deal, right. Well, make sure you read between the lines. Even the best deals have a catch and not all of them obvious.

The worst are sometimes not even in the agreement form. They are things you just didn’t think about when you signed up. Like the sheer volume of junkmail you will get when you become a member of one of these clubs. Even the best of them, the ones who don’t share your information with everyone else on the planet, send you weekly or monthly updates on their product. Or there’s having to remember to send in notice that you’re not interested in this months selection. If you don’t then you’ll receive a package in the mail in the next few weeks with crap you don’t want that’s already been charged to your credit card. Then you’re stuck returning the item to the post office to be returned to them, as long as you remembered not to open the box. If you did, more times than not you’re screwed and now you own the Rich Little Cookbook and a DVD of cats singing Christmas carols.

The good news is most of these clubs have online systems for canceling orders. Scifi Book Club, while my wife and I love their product and some of the prices, has been very rude about our sending back their selections. Even if we don’t open the box they are threatening to charge us for the books whether we keep them or not. My other complaint is that even though we are good customers and have surpassed our purchasing requirements the deals aren’t any better for us, and the shipping and handling is rather high. The only way to deal with this, is for us to drop our membership with them.

On the other hand, I’ve enjoyed membership with Columbia House DVD. They are courteous, offer better deals for their preferred members including reduced shipping charges, and they make declining the Monthly Selection simple and convenient. Their pricing is all over the place but if you keep an eye out you’ll find a number of good deals, few other retailers can match.

Just remember if you’re going to join one of these clubs read the fine print and think about if you can really live up to the expectations of being a member. There’s always a better deal out there so don’t be afraid to do your homework and wait for just the right one to come along. Otherwise, being a member of some of these purchasing clubs can be rewarding.

2004-09-08T14:34:00.000-07:00

Buying books? Where do you go? Barnes and Noble, Borders, Powell’s, Amazon and many others have made their mark selling books to consumers. Every grocery store and airport has at least a minimal selection of the latest Best Sellers. Independents are clearly being left in the wake of discount and big box alternatives, not to mention the myriad of sources on the internet. What can they do to compete? Can they survive?

It’s difficult to say. The independent book store comes in all shapes and sizes. By design they typically are owned and staffed by book lovers. Employees know more about the books they have in stock. Talk to any of them and you’ll see the passion in their eyes as they talk about their favorite authors and new releases. Independent bookstores fill a very important niche in the industry of bookselling. Here is where hardcore readers and those desiring superior customer service come for the best in buying books.

Big box retailers have their place as well. Much like the big music chains, they offer a wider selection of books and ordering abilities than many independents. Through sheer size and command of the marketplace, they dictate better wholesale deals leading many times to better deals for consumers. Buying from a large retail company also gives customers a uniformity of policies regarding returns that can’t be found through the local bookstore.

Even as an author, I’m a bit on the fence about the battle between the big box retailers and independent bookstores. In my heart, I have a soft spot for the small bookstore owner. Supporting local artists and lesser-unknown writers independent bookstores have more connection with their customers and have a better idea what they want. Corporate chains are powerhouses that look at sheer numbers and blockbuster Best Seller categories more than an individual writer.

They each fill their niche. I buy from the big guys on Best Selling books when their prices are the lowest. Generally, I go in looking for one particular book. Whereas, the local bookstores I frequent when I want to pick up a bunch of books, or have no idea exactly what I’m looking for. I spend hours looking and talking to the owner while my son plays with her cat.

I for one hope there never will be a day when we don’t have the option to choose. If all the independents are one day put out of business, it will be a sad day for readers. Supporting local bookstores is a bit like supporting the local library and that is something most agree we should do.

2004-09-07T01:13:00.000-07:00

Board Friends

Once you’ve passed the bar hopping, clubbing age adults eventually settle in to a different perspective on what entitles an evening of fun. A casual dinner out at a nice restaurant or blockbuster show at the local multiplex becomes the norm. Occasionally having friends over for a barbeque and an evening of board games can spice up Friday and Saturday nights.

There is a whole host of board games on the market, and everyone has their favorites. Pictionary has always been a perennial favorite. We can get into some rather raucous games and if we don’t watch it, it can get out of hand. (My brother and I still don’t speak after our last game nearly turned into fisticuffs. Of course, that’s another story.)

Personally, I really enjoy Taboo although this game takes more people and for some reason not all of our friends find it as much fun as I do. Cranium is a favorite at our closest “couple” friend’s house. They love this game along with most of America. For some reason I can’t quite get into it. It has Pictionary elements so it seems like a logical one for me to enjoy. The nice thing is the makers of Cranium have actually produced updates for their game (Cranium Booster Box), something I wish they'd do for Pictionary.

Recently though, this same couple introduced us to Catchphrase, a hot potato style word guessing game. It’s fast paced antics make it a great game to play with a group of friends around the dinner table. There is both an electronic and regular game, but I recommend the electronic version because it has over 10,000 words in ten different categories. This has by far become our favorite party game.

Scrabble remains a great game to play when you have older couples over, parents and grandparents always enjoy this one. Risk is fun with friends but it isn’t a couple’s game. Better for a guy’s night when you have four or five hours to conquer the world with the throw of the dice. Monopoly is really more of a play it in the afternoon while on vacation at the beach house than a couples game. Trivial Pursuit seems to fit under this category as well, mostly because it takes so damn long to play. Who can start a game at 7 or 8 at night and not finish until the crack of dawn? No one in the thirtysomething crowd I can tell you that.

Camping always brings out the cribbage board and many team tournaments in the evenings around the campfire. Yes, I know this one is usually only played by the over 50 crowd but something about the game has grabbed a hold of my friends. It’s a good one to play and enjoy without having to take too seriously.

2004-09-06T23:15:00.000-07:00

Labor Day’s Origins

Driving back from our holiday weekend camping trip my wife asked me how Labor Day started and what it signified. Stupidly I remarked that it probably had to do with the end of the summer harvest season and might be a tradition we brought with us from our history with farming.

Wrong. After unloading the minivan of all our camping gear I set down to research the history of Labor Day. After I read the answer, I felt rather stupid. Most people probably already know what Labor Day is all about, for those few like me who don’t, I’ll give you a condensed version.

Surprisingly Labor Day has only been around for little over a hundred years. During the rather tumultuous years with Grover Cleveland as President, organized workers had been beaten down and the labor movement had all but stalled. In 1893, the Pullman railroad company faced a downturn of their business with a national depression that was going on at the time. Orders for new trains were declining and the owner George Pullman started laying off workers.

Pullman owned everything in the town of Pullman, Illinois and so even the workers who remained took wage cuts while their rents remained the same. There were little workers and residents could do since Mr. Pullman owned everything and working for his company was the only way to make a living. The employees walked out demanding higher wages and lower rents. This small protest got the attention of the larger national union and railroad workers across the nation began to protest, sometimes violently and destructively. Rioting, pillaging, burning railroad cars and general mayhem ensued sweeping up even those not involved into the mob.

The strike quickly became a national issue as railroad executives were panicking and mail was delayed. The President declared the strike illegal and a federal crime. Sending some 12,000 troops to restore order and break the strike escalated the problem and some deaths resulted. The strike though, was doomed. August 3rd, 1894 signaled the end of the strike. However, because 1894 was an election year Cleveland tried to appease workers and enacted Labor Day. He ultimately lost the election.

While civic leaders hailed Labor Day as a time for the common worker to take a day off from their toils and stand shoulder to shoulder with their fellows for the betterment of all working conditions, over the significance of Labor Day has waned. For many American families it marks the last long weekend of the summer, and the beginning of the school year for most. With less than 15 percent of American workers, belonging to unions Labor Day is more or less an excuse to take a day off from work.

2004-09-02T15:41:00.000-07:00

Bits and pieces

Sold out at gunpoint

Beijing hosts the next summer Olympics in 2008. Where Athens and most Olympics have a hard time filling the stadium in all the events, I suspect China won’t have that problem. Even if foreigners don’t come flocking to the games the Chinese government undoubtedly will ensure there won’t be any empty seats. They will go out of their way to put their best foot forward for the world and make the best impression they can. It will be interesting to see how China fairs in having the eyes of the world on them.

Tivo desperately trying to add more subscribers.

Tivo is really trying hard to get business. They’ve lowered the prices on many of their set top boxes and now are offering a $100 mail in rebate. For a limited time, they are offering the 40-hour for $99, 80-hour for $199, and 140-hour for $299. Of course, you’ll still have to pay $12.99 a month for the service or spring for the product lifetime service for a one-time charge of $299.

Our PVR changed the way we watch TV but I’m not sold on the Tivo service. Our satellite PVR has worked great and we don’t pay the hefty charges Tivo requires on top of buying their hardware. Either way, if you get a chance to purchase a PVR, DVR or Tivo (all the same thing, just different names) then get to it. If you like having control of what and when you watch on television, then this is for you.

2004-09-01T15:37:00.000-07:00

Man is a tool-using animal….Without tools he is nothing, with tools he is all.
Thomas Carlyle
On Boswell’s Life of Johnson

For a technologist this seems an accurate quote, an order affirming proclamation. In the chaos of biological necessity, we ask ourselves questions of life and seek purposeful answers. Man’s intellect in all its glory serves only one master, one purpose, to build. Without our instruments of engineering, we are weak animals with little else to compete against the onslaught of evolution.

Is there nothing more to humankind than the machines we build? Does technology mark our progress in the annals of time? Is our biologic imperative driving us to create a better mousetrap? Are we nothing without our tools?

We cannot argue that we are tool-using animals. It is in fact a defining characteristic of our species. Anthropologists mark our development with the evolution of our tools. Historians look to how we use those tools in building civilizations. Our entire modern civilization is obviously built around our machines and continual advancement of our devices.

Remove the tools, and what are we? What would become of humankind? It is not an easy question to answer. Those with strong spiritual ties may believe that humans are judged by God on our spirituality and morality. There are numerous examples of tribes of humans who don’t rely as heavily on modern technology as the rest of civilization. Yet, even these few tribal examples, the Native Americans included, still use and rely on tools to survive. Even the simplest of devices are creations of man, tools we use and in Carlyle’s view; those tools define us as beings.

It’s a tough question to answer. Even tougher to stomach. Deep inside me, something cries out in panic that this can’t be true. There has to be something more to us, than the tools we make. Our revulsion to this statement is emotional, and very human. However, it doesn’t bring us any closer to an answer. I will have to think on this further and explore the validity of this statement. I’d like to believe there is more to us beings than the technology we build. The trick is to answer the question with fact and logic, reasoning the truth behind our existence. Plato and Socrates would make far better philosophers to ponder this question; I’ll have to make do with what I have.

2004-08-31T22:54:00.000-07:00

I’ll tell you this; I’m not quite accustomed to this kind of personal writing in my column. I’ve been told repeatedly that people expect content that is more personal in blogs. If you haven’t realized this isn’t your typical blog. I don’t want to be just like all the other complainers out there rambling on about their mundane day.

I like providing information. I like connecting with people about real subjects not with barely intelligible drivel about the latest fight someone had with their girlfriend. That being said, I do like the informal manner a column can take inside the world of blogging. And occasionally, I’ll write about my day or about how things are going in general in my life.

Even with so much going on in my life, I have a difficult time imagining people want to hear about my day. Some of them are not that exciting. I spend a lot of time with my son, Tristan, cleaning house, and writing. We do get to have adventures every couple of days, travel quite a bit, and are constantly meeting new people. Sometimes I think if Tristan could write, he’d have a more interesting blog talking about his day, than I do.

That’s why I try to provide information from some of the articles I’m working on, perhaps people can learn something while browsing these columns. Sure, they can read a longer, better-written version when it comes out in Popular Science or PCWorld, or even wait for one of my books. But, this is free and the articles are condensed and easier to read than the ones I write for magazine editors.

Okay, you can go back to your soap operas and Monday Night Football. I have to finish playing Doom 3 so I can get the review finished.

2004-08-30T18:12:00.000-07:00

Over the course of the last three weeks, I’ve allowed my life to become cluttered and disorganized. Thinking I could handle a handful of big projects at once, we began to build a new fence on the side of our house to expand our backyard.

Simultaneously I had my den repainted and decorated. This 10X10 room holds enough stuff to fill both living rooms and the dining room in our house, which is exactly what happened.

Then my main computer in my office had a run in with the blue screen of death and so I had to rebuild and reinstall everything on it. All of this in the midst of my wife entering one of her busiest times at work. Her calendar has her home only 2 weeks between here and Christmas. Needless to say I’ve been trying to put the house back together again, get everything stuffed back into my cell and still take care of Tristan and work.

Oh, and the server went down and I had Internet problems so I couldn’t upload my column for the last three weeks either. While Simon worked on repairing and getting everything working, the columns I host were being neglected.

Here I sit, ready to get back to work. Almost everything is back to normal again. The column will return to normal publication, the house is finally livable again, and we have a new fence. I never realized how much affect having your life in a state of disrepair can have on ones mood and productivity. With messes everywhere I turned, I felt disconnected from myself, on edge and stressed out. I haven’t been able to relax in weeks, and I think it has a lot to do with things being a mess and not only because of the amount of work there was to accomplish.

Eastern Philosophies talk a great deal about having each part of your life centered and positioned for success. Through minding your Chi, a person can lead a more content and peaceful life. Until now, I hadn’t seen the correlation to my own life. Being aware of this makes me more inclined to do a little more reading on the Feng Shui. A Nuevo Cliché decorating philosophy that has become very popular in the last few years, there may be more to it than my skeptical self had realized.

2004-08-29T00:42:00.000-07:00

This evening as a family, we tried out a new local restaurant. It turned out to be a quaint inexpensive pasta place with a good family atmosphere. There were other families there so we weren’t as concerned about bringing our loud three year old. Tristan has many different moods and tonight’s centered on being loud and messy.

My wife, Andrea, and I had a nice conversation and meal while Tristan bathed in his kid’s plate of Spaghetti and Meatballs. Not one of the easiest things in the world to eat, spaghetti gives even adults the occasional splatter on the shirt. Being three and under the tutelage of Oscar the Grouch required making sure that nearly equal quantities ended up in the mouth as on his shirt and the floor.

Andrea and I flipped a coin to see who cleaned up the table and who power washed the meal off Tristan. I think we both lost. While she cleaned up the table as best she could I headed off to the bathroom. Pulling his shirt off and running it under the water-helped get a majority of the mess off. At least until the sink was plugged up from the noodles and tomato bits. Reaching in through the bloody colored water I scooped handfuls of food chunks out of the drain.

Both of us walked back out soaking as Andrea was giving the waiter an extra tip for helping to clean up the scene of the crime.

Before I had kids, my thinking was much different than it is now. Like my tolerance for kids and their poor behavior. On this occasion, I knew Tristan wasn’t really being bad, just three. Three years, nine months and six days ago I would never have been able to handle sitting through such chaos. Odd how one little kid can change a persons perspective so drastically.

2004-08-16T21:25:00.000-07:00

Due to a technical malfunction with our servers and ISP connection we were unable to publish any of the regularly scheduled columns. We apologize for the inconvenience. Please bear with us as we work out the kinks in our system. It does look like we are back up and running and Simon assures me there will be no repeats of this issue. He has also contracted some alternate means of getting a connection and updating the columns and websites if there are future problems.

So we are now back to the show.

2004-08-05T19:31:00.000-07:00

Building a fence, no experience necessary or a lesson in marriage counseling

This week Andrea is taking vacation at home. My grandfather calls this a honeydo week. More accurately its been a test of the strength of our marriage as we put up a fence on the side of our house. No contractors, just two people who don’t know anything about fences making it up as they go along. Add to the mix the fact that I have a back injury that limits my participation.

Andrea called in her second string husband, my best friend Bill, to come in and help dig the post holes at the start of the project. The next day work was put on hold because of our son’s third birthday. Monday everything else in the world conspired to make this a wholly unproductive day. By Tuesday, the holes were dug and the first of the posts were set. Wednesday the other half of them were finally in the ground and we waited twenty-four hours for them to set. Today, after we learned how to use an electric saw (turns out we didn’t know as much as we both thought we did) and messed up a couple of our 2X4’s we got the frame in place. The rest came together quickly.

Without giving you the blow by blow account of this less than spectacular build, we each had different ideas of how the fence should be built. Mind you, neither of us know anything about fences. Well, aside from the obvious.

Do you mix the concrete with water by hand? Or do you dump the bag in the hole and bring over the water hose? She wanted to do it the hard way and mix it by hand. I’m willing to concede that the hard way in this instance is probably also the right way. Although I have heard of people doing it both ways successfully.

How about measuring out the distance between the posts so that they are exactly eight feet? Or end up cutting each of the eight foot 2X4’s to fit? Can you guess which way we end up doing it?

In the end, the fence is up and it looks good. It helps that there are a row of rather large trees blocking most of the fence. From the street you can’t tell it was built by drunken dyslectic sailors. We have a bigger backyard and it’ll keep Tristan in, that’s all that matters. The various disagreements will be forgotten as they give way to all new arguments.

Sounds like we fight all the time, and we really don’t. The main problem is that we are both chronically right. After spending this week with Andrea building this fence, I’d say more married couples should give it a try. It’ll definitely bring any of the issues in your relationship to light, and may just give you a new insight into how you mate thinks and behaves. If you’re not confident about your relationship, then DON”T EVER BUILD A FENCE, you might as well divvy up the CD’s and pack your bags now.

2004-08-04T16:46:00.000-07:00

2004-08-03T16:01:00.000-07:00

2004-08-02T16:00:00.000-07:00

Today, it is my pleasure to introduce a new column coming to the world of J Marcus. A daily column devoted to the upcoming magazine Technovations. Highlighting the top stories in the world of technology, Technovations will become the single best source for information on innovations in technology. The magazine will make its premiere debut in September. Until then this column will provide a daily fix on the latest in technology with news, reviews, features and commentary.

I love electronics. Computers, game consoles, televisions and monitors, satellite, PVR’s and DVR’s, DVD recorders and players, digital cameras, home theater systems and MP3 players to name but a few of my favorite things. The list goes on and on, each day growing more complex and innovative. In order to sort things out I’ve pulled together a team of people who love electronics as well. We hope to give you a helping hand as you navigate through the amazing and sometimes treacherous world of personal electronics. (If you don’t think it can be treacherous try reading a TV owner’s manual in six different languages none of them passing for English.)

I’m excited to bring this Technovations column to the world. As a technology reporter and reviewer I see a lot of products and lots of befuddled consumers trying to understand this new electron world. When devices work as promised they can entertain, educate, and make our lives better. When they don’t it’s – well, damn annoying.

Technovations the magazine will be written by a team of talented technology writers. This column will be written by me much of the time; otherwise someone on staff will take a run at it.