As someone who enjoys video games I grow tired of all the reports about how they are going to turn me into an evil violent person. Here is some research to show otherwise.
I have this uncanny ability to buy a mac and then they go and update it like a month later. I check the rumor sites but when I buy a mac they never call it. The first time I had this happen is a few years ago when I bought a dual G4 tower. The rumor sites had said there was a G5 tower coming but nobody knew when. I waited months but I needed a new work machine. I got the tower and boom a month later G5 five towers. Well it just happened to me again today. Apple just upgraded their Macbook and Macbook Pro lines. When did I just pick up a macbook. A month ago. They had just been updated and there were no signs they were going to update them so soon. The MacBook pro's were do for an update, but not the simple macbook. If you want to make sure you don't get burned just ask if I just bought one and then wait a month.
When I first opened my macbook the screen looked bad to me as if the screen was set to something between 8 bit and 16 bit. I went into the system control panel first thing to see what it was set to. It was set to millions of colors. I tried different color profiles. It had a weird diagonal cross hatch pattern on the screen and weird dithering was happening because of it. No mater what I did I could not make it go away. My parents just got macbooks for Christmas. I compared their screens to mine and they did not have the pattern. Their screens looked great. So I took it to the mac store and the repair guys there said they didn't see anything really wrong with it. We even found one other macbook on the floor with the same problem. They said it was in spec since we found one on the floor with the same problem I asked them to please send it in anyway just to check and they did, but they said they probably would not do anything.
Apple care called last Friday. The job for the man on the phone was to find out what the problem is when the repair center can't find the problem. Great. I told him what was going on and he had heard about it but it was not an official problem. He said he had to make some calls and he would get back to me either later that day or Monday. Monday I left a message for him but he did not call back. I was starting to worry if my computer was stuck in repair limbo. He finally called me back today and said the apple engineers are looking into this and would like to keep my laptop. They would like to give me a new one. Thats right, one of the new ones that came out today. Ha! So they ordered me a new one today and should be here by the end of the week. Finally I don't feel so burned.
Here is a screen shot of the weird pattern if you were wondering:
I have two direct TV boxs with ethernet connections. You can plug them into the network but it really does nothing for you. I had read on the forum groups they were testing networking in select areas. Like Tivo, if you record a show on one box you can play it over the network to the other box. I called Direct TV to ask to be on that beta, but no one would help me on that. I figured that if I plugged them in when they role the beta out to more people they might see that mine are ready to go. Well I turn on my Direct TV and they let me know that I am in the Direct TV on demand beta. If you know anything about satellite TV, nothing is on demand. Everything is down stream. So how does it work? Well you actually download your on demand shows over the internet. So you pick the show you want to watch and it starts to download it. How long it takes before you can really watch depends on your broad band connection.
I used to have comcast cable and it had on demand as well. Everything I watched on that was very heavily compressed. It was so bad that I couldn't watch it. It was like watching video off a CD ROM game from 1990. The visual quality of the Direct TV on demand video looks the same as the standard def video they broadcast. There was a section for HD content but there was nothing in there. I will have to check back later on that one. One other feature is you can pick pay per view movies to download but they don't charge you until you watch it. You can download it now and it will be ready when you are ready to watch it. I have a xbox 360 with movie downloads but I hate that you have to pay up front and then wait. If you want to watch something that evening you have to pick it that afternoon to start downloading. Direct TV has also made it really easy to find the on demand channels. It just has a one in front of it. For example the history channel is on 269. Want to see what is on demand for history channel, just tune to 1269. Easy.
My only complaint on the direct TV on demand is the audio level. It is very quite. You really have to turn in up to hear it. Which sucks when you switch to something else because then you just get blasted. Its beta so hopefully they will fix that when encoding the video.
So I still don't have networking video which I was hoping to get by plugging in the boxes to the network but I will take this on demand stuff till then.
Starting last summer I have been really home bound. I have just not had a lot of time to get out and play with the arrival of a new baby, moving, so on and so on. Needless to say I have attracted a little weight and it is time for it to come off. We have 40 acres of mountain bike trails right behind my house and a ton of other good trails near by. I used to ride a lot back in the day and I am hopping to get a little more time in on the bike now to loose this weight.
I have been eying a Cannondale Prophet for a while now and I picked one up at an end of year sale. For its first run I went for a ride with a friend this weekend and it was blast, plus a kick in the pants. I have really missed mountain biking. Boy was I out of shape though. We did the Preston Railroad/Timberline Loop trail. The first part is a three mile up hill. Only 2,500 feet of elevation. Man I wanted to puke going up that. I used to ride up that without stopping or walking. There was a little of both this Saturday. Once on the top it was a different story. The old mountain biking skills kicked in. We passed a lot of people on the way down. It felt good to still know the skills are there. I just need to build up the strength so I don’t look like such a dork on the way up. :)
The new bike is a dream. It is basically my 14 year old bike but everything improved 100 fold. I was going over crap I would have never gone over on my old bike. The disk breaks would stop even when they were wet. It felt good to go fast and get covered in mud. Can’t wait for the next ride.
Here is pick of the new bike. Click on it for a larger image. See you out on the trail.
I just finished The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princes for the Wii. Once again another great Zelda game. If you have liked past Zelda games you will like this one too. What I really enjoyed was using the Wii remote for the control. No longer do you just push your "A" button to swing your sword. You really swing your Wii remote. It never got old for me. You also shot arrows the same way. You had to point at what you were trying to hit. This game is long(in a good way). I started back in January and with only an hour here and there I just now got it done. It took me 43 hours to finish. The sad part now is we will probably have to wait another five years for a new one.
I am on to Super Paper Mario right now and that has been a lot of fun too so far. This one is only rumored to take 20 hours to finish. So some time in August I hope to be done. :) I have to be. Bioshock is coming out then. This is the first 360 game I have been excited about since Gears of War. If you have a 360 you should really check it out. This holiday season is full of games I want to play. It is just to bad that I don't have the time to play them. At least when I do finally get to them many of them will have dropped in price. That is one thing about being to busy to play every new game.
I need a good rally racer. It makes me sad that the best one out there is no longer being made. I am taking about you RalliSport Challenge 2. There are two choices this year on the 360 and I am not sure which one I will get. The Wii remote also has me thinking about force feedback steering wheel for these games. It just adds another level of fun to the game as well a little better control.
Dirt or Rally Revo
I have this uncanny ability to buy a mac and then they go and update it like a month later. I check the rumor sites but when I buy a mac they never call it. The first time I had this happen is a few years ago when I bought a dual G4 tower. The rumor sites had said there was a G5 tower coming but nobody knew when. I waited months but I needed a new work machine. I got the tower and boom a month later G5 five towers. Well it just happened to me again today. Apple just upgraded their Macbook and Macbook Pro lines. When did I just pick up a macbook. A month ago. They had just been updated and there were no signs they were going to update them so soon. The MacBook pro's were do for an update, but not the simple macbook. If you want to make sure you don't get burned just ask if I just bought one and then wait a month.
I have two direct TV boxs with ethernet connections. You can plug them into the network but it really does nothing for you. I had read on the forum groups they were testing networking in select areas. Like Tivo, if you record a show on one box you can play it over the network to the other box. I called Direct TV to ask to be on that beta, but no one would help me on that. I figured that if I plugged them in when they role the beta out to more people they might see that mine are ready to go. Well I turn on my Direct TV and they let me know that I am in the Direct TV on demand beta. If you know anything about satellite TV, nothing is on demand. Everything is down stream. So how does it work? Well you actually download your on demand shows over the internet. So you pick the show you want to watch and it starts to download it. How long it takes before you can really watch depends on your broad band connection.
I just finished 
