Wii Warrior

The blog is dead, long live the new blog

2009-02-21T22:23:00.004+01:00

I've decided to move my blog to Wordpress instead since Blogger doesn't seem a priority to Google.

My new blog is here: http://barbedwirebytecodebaconburger.wordpress.com

The dumbest and most faulty sentence ever in a tech-article

2008-12-06T16:41:00.008+01:00

Taken from this article on Forbes.com:

Google employees not using the secret OS are employing various versions of Unix, such as Linux or Ubuntu, and some older operating systems, like X11, he says

And "he" being "Vince Vizzacarro, Net Applications' executive vice president of marketing". That sentence is riddled with enough erronous information to make me cringe.

One, Ubuntu is a version of Linux, which in turn is a Unix-like OS. If I was gonna nitpick I could also state that Linux is in fact not an OS - it's an operating system kernel and operating systems based on it are called distributions. But never mind...

Two, X11 is not an operating system or anything close to it. X11 is windowing system software used by most desktop system for Unix-like OSes, like KDE, Gnome or XFCE for example.

So now I wonder who the idiot here is. Is Vince Vizzacarro with his fancy title as completely misinformed as he seems or has he been misquoted by the writer of the article? Either way it's a disgrace.

Why I'll never buy a high-end PC ever again

2008-10-30T18:11:00.006+01:00

Although I've been a computer geek since forever, until two years ago I'd never really forked over the bigger bucks for a PC. I've always bought the model or the parts that were not great but did the job acceptably well, almost never the cheapest junk though.

About two years ago it was time for a serious upgrade, i.e. a new PC, and this time around I decided it was time that I owned a really high-end machine. So I did some research, bought the right parts - some of them released no more than a week earlier - and built a pretty awesome PC based on a nice Intel Core2Duo CPU, sporting dual 17" TFT-monitors with the appropriate Nvidia-card to drive them, three hard drives (two of them in RAID1) and buckets of RAM. The box set me back about 19.000 SEK (which is roughly $2600 with today's rates). Granted, this was not a crazy ass machine but on a scale of 1 to 10 in awesomeness, with 10 being the most insane gaming rig money can buy, I believe it was at the time a solid 8 at least. Since I hardly play PC-games at all, I'm a console kinda guy, it was more than sufficient to satisfy my needs and much more.

Well, two months ago I bought myself a 20" iMac and consequently had less use for my monster-PC. So I decided to sell it.

I read somewhere that a PC supposedly loses about half of it's worth in a year so in two years a PC is worth one quarter of it's original price. Since originally buying the PC I'd upgraded it a little bit with some more RAM and better cooling so I thought that I should be able to get 4.500 SEK for it right? Wrong.

It seems the second hand market for complete PCs really doesn't exist. PC-parts is a whole other thing, but a complete box just isn't worth anything at all it seems. I've been trying to sell my PC through multiple channels (auctionsites, ad in the newspaper, etc.) for weeks now and the interest is really non-existant. I've gotten a couple of e-mails from people asking me to lower the price or asking if I'll sell it for less with this or that part taken out, but no one has taken the bait for real so far.

I'm completely dumbfounded here. What is it that makes the second hand value of a PC virtually zero? The only machines that seem to have any real second hand value are Macs. I mean, there are old G4 MacMinis with half the horsepower and a quarter of the storage going for almost the same as I'm asking for my monster-PC. Are the Apple-fanboys the only ones that have money to spend or what's up with this? It's just crazy.

It's not like I thought I'd make my money back selling my two year old PC, but I thought that in a world where the majority of people use PCs there would at least be somebody enticed enough by the prospect of owning said machine. I guess I'm just really surprised that my assumptions were so wrong.

I discussed the whole thing with a friend and we came to the conclusion that most people don't really get the quality of hardware that's in my machine, all they see is a two year old computer that costs as much as a low-budget Dell that's brand new, so they go buy the Dell instead because it's, well, new, although it's way crappier than my machine is. Also, the people that do understand the real value of the machine would probably rather buy new parts and build their own rig so they pass on it for that reason. So basically, once again, the market for second-hand PCs (and high-end ones in particular) is shit.

However, the market for second hand PC-parts seems to be a little better so if my PC still has no buyer by next week I'm chopping it up and selling the bits and pieces individually. That should make me enough money to buy me and my girlfriend a decent sushi dinner at least :-P

So lesson learned, never buy an expensive PC again unless I really, really need that much juice. From here on any PC I buy will be just enough to get things done. No more, no less.

Authorize buddy? Not so much

2008-10-29T16:33:00.004+01:00

Seriously, who the hell authorizes a request that looks like that? Epic fail fuckhead.

Eee used to be a sweet brand

2008-10-17T15:03:00.005+01:00

Seriously, what's up with the people at Asus and why are they so thoroughly raping their own brand? I'm talking of course about the Eee.

What started with a small revolution in the notebook-market, the tiny but nice EeePC, has now become pretty much a farce. First of all, what's up with the millions of different configurations of EeePCs? Can even Asus keep up with all of them? Secondly, it seems that every other new piece of hardware coming out of their factories now sports the Eee-logo. Every week there seems to be a new model or a new product called the Eee-whatever. It's getting a bit much in my opinion.

The original EeePCs were made affordable partly because they ran Linux, a modified Xandros-based version that provided a super-simple interface that even your grandma could use without much trouble, making them a good buy for the computer novice not only because of the small price. But it wasn't long before market forces pressured Asus enough to start offering new models running Windows XP. Fine, if people really wanna run Windows XP let them. I just think it kind of defeats the whole point that the original EeePCs were making with their sleak Linux-powered and almost idiot-proof interface. An EeePC running Windows XP is just like any other cheap laptop, only smaller and with inferior hardware. Plus, the EeePC-models running Windows XP are more expensive than the ones running Linux. The ones that are the same price and model-number although running varying OSes have differences in their hardware specifications, i.e. smaller and cheaper harddrive to pay for the Windows XP-license.

There are now desktop-PCs wearing the Eee-logo popping up on the market. First there was the EeeBox, which I kind of see how it would be useful. It runs Windows XP or Linux, just like many of the netbooks of the brand. And now there's a all-in-one touch screen PC called the Eee Top. I don't know much about it yet but apparently it runs Windows XP infused with something that looks like the Easy-Mode UI on the EeePC netbooks. Judging by this video it doesn't run all that well though...

Too me it seems that Asus are a bit dizzy by the success of the first Eee-branded products and now they think that anything wearing the Eee-logo will become a money-printing machine and by drowning the market in different models and products they may actually kill their own brand in the end.

I'm personally aching a bit for one of the EeePC 901s running Linux and I already own one of the original EeePCs, a 701 4G (with touch screen installed), but this flood of Eee-products leaves a bit of a foul taste in my mouth none the less

Mine is bigger than yours

2008-08-25T22:12:00.004+01:00

My storage space that is ;-) My Drobo kicks ass. And Firewire 800 is the shit.

Where are the chicks?

2008-08-14T11:42:00.007+01:00

Here's a pretty cool project that was sent to me by a co-worker. Being a complete and utter geek everything robotic naturally arouses me in every way possible. Just kidding, not in every way, but still plenty enough.

However, one thing about this projects saddens me a bit, and by no fault of the project participants I might add.

Take a look at the list of credits at the bottom. Three men, the people that did the building and programming of the robot, and one woman. What did the woman do? "Robot costuming"... But of course, since she's a woman she couldn't have done anything engineering-like, right? It had to be something with clothes (although calling it clothes might in this case be stretching the term a bit). *sigh*

Don't get me wrong here. I'm not blaming Fannie White for anything and I'm sure she's capable of doing lots of things that have nothing to do with costumes. I just find it a bit sad that when I for once see a woman mentioned in a project like this, her assignment is very stereotypical for what the male-dominated world we live in typically thinks women are good for.

Any female engineers out there? I hope so. I really, really hope so. Just like I wish they'd be featured more prominently than they are.

Fire! Fire! Cool!

2008-08-11T12:29:00.004+01:00

As reported on Digg today, Google Street View caught a house on fire with their cameras. The picture linked from the article on Digg has however been removed. But the fire is still viewable if you just approach the house from a different angle. Neat.

Oh, and here's a screenshot:

Things I learned from "WarGames - The Dead Code".

2008-07-25T22:44:00.007+01:00

Terrorists love to play online games, and they're really good at it too.

If you play a war-themed game really well, the government will think you're a terrorist.

Supercomputers can talk and their insides light up and flash when they're processing data.

When something is written to or displayed on a computer screen, it always makes some sort of beeping noise.

When a user is denied access to a remote computer system a deep bloopy noise is made and the screen goes blank.

Articifical intelligence always equals hostility towards the human race.

The more powerful computer, the more unrealistic and crazy 3D-swirling graphical user interface.

Computer-savy teenagers can do anything even remotely imaginable with any and all pieces of information technology hardware, especially if there's a cheap joke involved.

You can use Photoshop to make fake passports. Really. You can.

If you're gonna make a movie that really sucks, be sure that the title and absurd story at least does a good job of raping the legacy of a real classic piece of cinema.

This has been some of the most loathsome ninetyfive minutes of my life. The only thing that could've made this movie any worse would've been an appearance by Steven Seagal. Oh well, maybe he'll appear in the sequel...

Yes! Yes! Make with the awesome Master Whedon!

2008-07-09T11:55:00.012+01:00

Serious ass-kickering awesomeness courtesy of Joss Whedon coming soon...

More info here, and here.

The importance of good acting

2008-07-04T09:10:00.006+01:00

I was watching "Equilibrium" with Christian Bale last night when something struck me. Imagine if a REAL actor like Christian Bale, who is by far one of the greatest actors in modern time, had played Neo in the "Matrix"-movies instead of Keanu "I have no facial expressions except the one that looks like a zoned out pothead and the one that looks like I'm taking a difficult dump, and I can't act worth shit" Reeves?

The first film was an amazing movie despite Keanu's abysmal performance and the two sequels have grown on me with time, but if Christian Bale had been given the opportunity to portray Neo, damn, the trilogy may have been one of the most epic ones ever, right up there with "The Godfather", "Trilogy of the dead" and "Lord of the rings". Now it's just a runner up with some really cool science fiction ideas and an interesting philosophical spin.

Oh well, at least they didn't give it to Will Smith as originally planned. That's always something to be thankful for.

And this reminds me that I gotta get "The Prestige" on blu-ray real soon. Wolverine AND Batman in the same movie, how can it be anything but awesome? Trust me, it IS awesome :-)

Maybe they're not all bad after all

2008-07-01T08:30:00.006+01:00

Or at least they're getting better, Microsoft that is. According to a recent announcement on their website they're finally releasing documentation for their horrid binary file formats. The ones used up until 2007 at least.

This is a good thing, a very good thing even. Granted that the documentation is accurate this means it'll get easier for developers to interoperate with Microsoft's proprietary technologies and that's great since they have such a huge percentage of the market when it comes to wordprocessing, spreadsheet and presentation software (i.e. Word, Excel and PowerPoint). Good news for data portability in other words and maybe now the OpenOffice-team won't have to reverse engineer stuff until they're blue in the face to make Microsoft Office documents work flawlessly within their own applications.

I'm calling this a good day for interoperability and open development.

Hell yeah! PS3 firmware v2.40 makes dreams come true

2008-06-30T11:54:00.004+01:00

In game XMB! Finally! And playing music from the harddrive while gaming - awesome! Now just release the damn thing already :-D

Face the pain

2008-06-23T08:21:00.004+01:00

Two of my favorite things, the UFC and the PS3, united at last. This is going to be awesome. I'm sure of it.

Are we there yet?

2008-06-17T23:47:00.002+01:00

Yes, we are.

Linksys router tutorial with boobies?

2008-06-17T12:16:00.006+01:00

WTF?

Unfortunately I haven't had time to actually watch it yet :-P

Woz hacking Kathy Griffin's iPhone

2008-06-13T10:57:00.004+01:00

I couldn't help but chuckle at this. Also, this is a little what my relationship with my girlfriend is like. Maybe that's why I found it so amusing.

Getting down with my EeePC

2008-05-27T20:11:00.007+01:00

I've been playing around a lot with my Asus EeePC 701 4G lately. Actually, I've possibly been playing a little too much even since I've had to restore it to factory settings three times after being a little too adventurous with it.

With great help from the excellent wiki and forums at eeeuser.com I've played with and tweaked my EeePC plenty. I've activated the full KDE desktop, modified many of the shell scripts controlling the hardware, overclocked the CPU (which also included installing new kernel modules and playing with the fan-settings), compiled new kernels, done some network-hacking with Wireshark and aircrack-ng and much more

Last night I took a shot at enabling some 3D goodness by installing Compiz on the little beast and, low and behold, it actually worked!

As you can see it does indeed work, and pretty well at that! Very impressive for the modest hardware of the EeePC.

However, with a screen resolution of 800x480 the wobbling and bouncing windows get pretty annoying, and transparency doesn't seem to work (the thick black lines around all the items on the screen are because of this). The cube desktop switching is both cool and very usable though.

I have lots of neat projects lined up for my EeePC, one being installing a touch screen (I've ordered the needed hardware already) and other being using it as a wireless access point. It's a great machine to play around with and the Xandros Linux OS running on it by default is based on Debian which means I have access to a huuuge amount of pre-packaged software - very nice!

I'd recommend this machine to anyone in need of an extremely portable and moderately priced notebook PC for basic computing (e-mail, websurfing, word processing, etc.), or to any fellow hacker or gadget-freak that just wants an awesome new toy. Although it weighs less than a kilo and has pretty modest hardware, it still packs enough of a punch to fulfill most computer users needs.

The EeePC is simply awesome!!!

Haha! Suck eggs Steve!

2008-05-20T12:46:00.004+01:00

This totally made my day:

From another angle:

Getting older is a bitch

2008-04-26T18:35:00.002+01:00

I just had my ass handed to me by what I'm guessing is a 14-year old kid.

During five grueling minutes I was utterly humiliated in an online game of "Mario Strikers Charged Football" on the Wii. I was run over, dazzled and crushed by this kid with the kind of lightning fast reflexes and tremendous skills that only someone that has yet to finish puberty and has too much free time on their hands can ever possess.

I'm not a bad gamer in any way. I've played endless hours of various games, both online and offline, on my own and against others, with great success. But being over thirty with a job and every day life going on, I don't have six hours every day to devote to every new game that hits the market. I'd like to, but I don't and I never will. This is why from here on as soon as a new game comes out and I decide to play it against others online I'll surely find myself being destroyed by teenagers again and again.

I'm pretty much at peace with this fact though. I just wish that there was some secluded area online where us old timers could graze and play amongst ourselves without having to deal with the angst of combatting hyperactive teeny gamers. Maybe there is such a place, and I just don't know about it. If so, someone please enlighten me.

Too me, it's no longer as much about winning as it used to. It's more about experiencing the games and enjoying them for what they are - exquisite works of digital art. If I get my ass handed to me by another gamer, I don't mind as long as it was a fair fight and I enjoyed myself.

Speaking of which, I just bought "Warhawk" for the PS3 and I look forward to getting my ass kicked time and time again.

Look everybody, I'm Vista certified!

2008-04-20T22:40:00.008+01:00

One of our cats thought it was a good idea to eat through the cable connecting my keyboard to my PC the other day. So consequently I had to buy a new keyboard.

Lucky for me I found the exact same Logitech keyboard at an online retailer and although it was 100 SEK (that's about $15 I think) more than I paid for my original one I went ahead and ordered it because I really loved the feel of that keyboard.

When the keyboard arrived the other day I noticed that it said "Vista certified" on the front of box. "Vista certified"? Isn't every keyboard "Vista certified"? And in what way could this keyboard that on the picture I saw online appeared identical to my old one differ from said demised keyboard (which I bought before Windows Vista was even out) thus making it "Vista capable"?

Here's a picture of both of them (old one at the bottom):

Spot the difference? No? Take a closer look. They changed the look of the "Windows-button" giving it a slightly close resemblance to the Vista-logo. That's basically it! Awesome huh? That certainly warrants an attention-grabbing note on the front of the box doesn't it? And yes, that was sarcasm. This is so silly.

Here's a close-up of both keyboards (old one at the top):

Now that's just some friggin' brilliant stuff that is! LOL

Awesome Kevin. Welcome to the 21st century.

2008-03-31T22:15:00.003+01:00

I was watching the latest episode of "Diggnation" and Kevin Rose was talking about the latest iPhone rumours. Apparently there's gonna be a 3G iPhone pretty soon and it will have two cameras, one of them facing the person holding the phone, so that you can do video-chat.

While Alex Albrecht goes "I'm not so hot for the video-chat because I don't even do that on my computer" while Kevin, stoked out of his mind, goes like "but how cool would it be to have a friend call you up and do video-chat on your phone?". Haha, priceless.

Dude, people here in Europe have been doing that for half a decade now. My dad, who's almost 60, does it. It's not bleeding edge anymore and it hasn't been for years. Welcome to the 21st century. I hope you'll like it here ;-)

It just makes me laugh, how a big nation like the US can be so far behind in some areas. 3G is not something new, it's just that the US hasn't implemented it with any real success yet. The fact that Apple adds 3G to the next generation of the iPhone doesn't make it new and exciting. It just means they're catching up to what Nokia and SonyEricsson have been doing successfully for years.

Personally I'm pretty stoked about a 3G iPhone though, and I'm hoping it turns out real good.

I think the current iPhone is pretty much a waste of hardware since it lacks many of the features my Nokia N80IE has (3G, MMS, video-chat and Bluetooth that isn't crippled for example) and many of these things I actually rely upon every day. But if they had those features on the iPhone I'd get one for sure.

Also, being the owner of an iPod Touch I know that the touch screen user interface is more than a gimmick. It's actually pretty usable and neat once you get the hang of it, and the big screen is awesome for watching video podcasts, movies and TV-shows. It's a really awesome gadget and well worth the $299 it set me back.

So if I could have all of the coolness of the iPod Touch plus the useful features of my 3G-phone naturally I'd go for that. But that basically means ALL of the useful features of my Nokia N80IE, not just a couple. Otherwise I'll wait until Apple gets it right. If they ever do that is ;-)

GlaDOS - pwned!

2008-03-10T12:52:00.001+01:00

Gary Gygax 1938-2008

2008-03-05T09:10:00.005+01:00

Thank you for the endless hours of fun you brought me and millions of others. You will forever be remembered as one of the greatest creative people that ever lived. I for one can testify to the fact that Advanced Dungeons & Dragons forever changed my life and helped shape me into who and what I am today. You will be missed.

Rest in peace.

Die chimera, die!

2008-02-28T21:53:00.004+01:00

And they did...

Yes, you guessed it. I finished "Resistance: Fall of Man". Awesome game. I'm so coming back for more very soon!

Two becomes one

2008-02-15T09:27:00.005+01:00

I've decided that running more than one blog is too much work. I simply don't have the energy and both blogs suffer (you may or may not have noticed the decline in action from me lately..).

Therefor I am moving all of my efforts to this one and this means that things that used to belong in my other blog will now appear here, possibly along with some stuff that previously had no place in either of my blogs.

You see, blogging to me is primarily about venting and just narrowing down all my rants to be about just one or two things (video gaming, computers, whatever) is simply not constructive and kind of defeats the purpose of me blogging at all.

So in the future, expect more ranting than before in this space. But also, expect different kinds of rants. Just like before it will mostly be incoherent babbling about technology, video games and such, since those are my main interests and what I spend most of my cerebral energy on. But there are no holds barred from now on. And now you know.

Yes, that is a picture of the movie poster for "No holds barred", the movie starring the immortal Hulk Hogan. Yes, I'm a wrestling buff. You dig?

Done, and done

2008-02-11T17:25:00.000+01:00

I finished "Ratchet & Clank: Tools of destruction" this past Friday, and I'm almost sad I did so. That game has been so much fun to play it's unbelievable, and it's sooo beautiful. Definitely HD-gaming at it's prettiest.

Finishing the game unlocks a "challenge mode" which is basically the game all over again but you get to keep all of the weapons and gadgets you've collected while playing it through the first time, plus there's now a bunch of new weapons and a lot more monsters. So, it looks like I'm far from done with this game after all. Fun, fun, fun!

As if that wasn't enough, two hours ago I finally finished "God of war" unlocking plenty of nice extras, such as "Challenge of the gods" and "God mode".

There's still more to unlock though, but in order to do that I need to finish the game in "God mode", and that'll certainly take me a while. So maybe I'm not so much done with that one either when I think about it.

Praise the demo-downloads!

2008-01-15T21:28:00.000+01:00

One feature that I've found very nice on the PS3 is that I can download playable demos of games from the PlayStation Store. When games cost as much as they do these days it's really a great thing to be able to take them for a little test drive before forking over my hard-earned cash for the real deal.

Yesterday I downloaded the demo for "Conan", and oh boy am I ever glad I did. You see, if I'd paid actual money for this piece of crap I'd be livid!

First of all: the graphics. Hello? Isn't this supposed to be an HD-capable console? I've got PS2 games several years old that look way better - "God of war" and "Killzone" to name a few.

Secondly and probably most importantly: the gameplay. You have basically no friggin' moves and the game seems to respond very slowly so combat is both frustrating and a bore. The minute elements of puzzle-solving that was featured in the demo was also laughable.

Thirdly, the demo is way too short for an action-adventure game. I mean really, I played through it completely in minutes and afterwards I wasn't one bit interested in seeing more since the demo left me thinking that this was what the game was like, only longer.

So thanks Sony for helping me steer clear of this turd of a game.

Demos I have been enjoying though and that made me wanting to play the game for real are "The Club" and "Uncharted: Drake's fortune". Now those left me salivating slightly and definitely wanting more!

The free download of "Lemmings" (full game!) also put a big smile on my face. What an awesome game in all of it's simplicity and how missed it ever since I played it ages ago on the original GameBoy.

I've also download "Kane & Lynch" and "Stranglehold", but I haven't gotten around to trying them out yet.

66.666%

2008-01-06T22:04:00.000+01:00

The following is taken from the latest newsletter from J!NX and makes me even happier that I went for a PS3 and not an Xbox360:

As a public service, we'd like to provide this brief rant: Nine people in the J!NX Office ponied up a hefty wad of female deer for an Xbox360. Of those nine, six of us now have a broken Xbox360. For the math-impaired, that makes 66.666% (repeating, of course) bitter J!NX gamers. So sad... We have consoles from 20 years ago that still work perfectly, apart from a few cartridges that need a blow now and then... (heh, blow...)

The Xbox360 has the largest amount of awesome games of any of the next-gen consoles, but this whole thing with them breaking is just embarrassing. There's no other console in history that has as bad of a track record from breaking as the 360.

And now when I think about it, I've never even heard of a PS3 breaking without someone doing something pretty stupid to it.

Eating my own words, and loving it!

2008-01-05T13:54:00.001+01:00

Yes, it's true. Only a couple of month after my latest spewing of foul language over the PlayStation 3 I went and bought one for myself and you can view it in all it's expensive glory to the right of these words.

So what made me change my mind? Well, a couple of things. First and most importantly, the games are finally starting to pop up. That has been my main problem with the PS3, the lack of good games. But now there's plenty of games worthy of my cash out there; "Resistance: Fall of man", "Uncharted: Drake's fortune", "Ratchet & Clank: Tools of destruction" and "Call of duty 4: Modern warfare" to name a few.

Secondly and also very important, there are even more awesome cames on the horizon. I'm speaking of upcoming masterpieces like "Dead space", "Killzone 2", "God of war 3" (OK, it's set for release in 2009, but it's "God of war 3" doggammit!!) and "Metal gear solid 4: Guns of the patriots".

Also, it's looking more and more like Blu-Ray is kicking HD-DVD in the ass and killing it slowly but steadily. So I decided that for my HD-needs, I'm taking my chances with Blu-Ray.

What finally tipped the scale completely was that I got quite a big lump of cash back on my tax returns so suddenly the high price of the PS3, which has been my second biggest complaint, was no longer a problem.

On top of that, I managed to procure one of the last remaining 60GB machines available in Europe. One of the many perks of working for a large retailer of music, movies and games I guess ;-)

I've only had my PS3 for about a day but I have no regrets what so ever. I've already played several hours of "Ratchet & Clank: Tools of destruction" and "Resistance: Fall of man", downloaded movie trailers, game demos and such and am enjoying my new expensive toy very much.

Unfortunately I'm not having much of an HD-experience so far since it turns out that the single HDMI-port (which has never been used before) on my Samsung LCD-TV is broken! I still have a year to go on the warranty on the TV so it's not a huge problem since I'll get it fixed for free. But while it is being fixed I'll be without a big-screen TV and have to settle for the 23" LCD-TV in the bedroom (which actually has a functioning HDMI-port) for several days, maybe even a couple weeks, and that sucks a bit of ass.

But on the upside of things, until I get my big-screen TV off to the repair shop "Ratchet & Clank: Tools of destruction" kicks some serious ass in 576i too I can tell you!

At least I'm not alone

2007-11-29T21:09:00.000+01:00

So I've been thinking lately that maybe I've downloading a bit too many Virtual Console games for my Wii. But this article on IGN made me feel alright again.

Apparently I'm not the only one going crazy for the retro goodness of Virtual Console. Since the release of the Wii not even a year ago 7.8 million games have been downloaded, for a total sum of about $33 million!

The coverage on Destructoid also made me wonder exactly how much I've forked over to Nintendo for my frequent trips down memory lane. So here's my list:

Super Mario Bros (500 Wii Points)
Kid Icarus (500 Wii Points)
Ice Climber (500 Wii Points)
Gradius (500 Wii Points)
Punch-Out!! (500 Wii Points)
Mega Man (500 Wii Points)
Metroid (500 Wii Points)
Xevious (500 Wii Points)
R-Type (800 Wii Points)
Super Castlevania IV (800 Wii Points)
Gunstar Heroes (800 Wii Points)
Super Metroid (800 Wii Points)
Donkey Kong Country (800 Wii Points)
Mario Kart 64 (1000 Wii Points)
Super Mario 64 (1000 Wii Points)

That's a total of 10000 Wii Points. Not that much, but still quite a few.

Oh well, at least now I know that there are many that share my obsession with the past. So how much have you guys spent on Virtual Console games? And be honest ;-)

Why isn't this guy locked up in an institution?

2007-11-22T07:29:00.000+01:00

First of all, how the hell can anybody be a Zune fanboy? I mean, take a look at it. It looks like crap, and on top of that just like everything else from the big Satan in Redmond it's a handicapped device weighted down by DRM and functionality that only works a little bit (such as the retarded song-sharing). It's ugly, stupid and the claim that it was the "iPod killer" is the silliest ever.

But still, there's people actually delusional enough to willingly call themselves fans of the device. The most radical example of a Zune fanboy is the wacko with all those Zune tattoos and apparently now he's taking it one step further - he wants to change his name to Microsoft Zune!!!

This guy is beyond retarded. I'm really at a loss for words here. It almost makes me want to buy an iPod just to counteract his "Zune-love".

Game companies, give us your spoils

2007-11-07T14:19:00.000+01:00

Every now and again it happens that a much anticipated game gets canceled or for some other reason never gets released.

In recent memory there's "Manhunt 2" which was stopped completely but has since then, after it's developer Rockstar Games had censored parts of the game, been released for the PlayStation 2, Nintendo Wii and PSP in the US. Europe has yet to see it's release since the BBFC rejected even the modified version of the game.

Also there is the case of "Project H.A.M.M.E.R.", a game for the Nintendo Wii announced at E3 2006 which received much initial interest from the gaming community, myself included. The prospect of playing a raging cyborg armed with a huge hammer in his quest to cause massive blunt-force trauma to evil alien robots was one hard to pass on, especially considering the Wii's controls. The Wiimote was practically made for games like this.

However, for reasons unknown "Project H.A.M.M.E.R." will probably never see the light of day since Nintendo decided to cancel or "pause" indefinitely it's development earlier this year.

When I read about this I was beside myself with disappointment and quite a bit pissed off, that's how much I'd been looking forward to crushing malevolent robots with my Wiimote.

Why Nintendo would decide to cancel a game that has already received a fair bit of push and exposure, and that there has obviously existed some sort of playable demo of for well over a year, is beyond me. I think it's a waste and really stupid.

But OK, so they will not finish "Project H.A.M.M.E.R." and I'll have to live with that, but what about that demo that they showed at E3 last year? Could we have that? Slap it up on The Shopping Channel and make it a cheap download. That would at least make me a little happier. At least then we can crush a couple of robots and delight in some aggressive flailing of the Wiimote, even if it's not a full game.

As a matter of fact, why doesn't the game companies do the same for other titles that get canceled but are still kind of playable? I'm sure plenty of gamers would be willing to fork over $5 or something like that for a small morsel of what could've been. I know I certainly would.

The "Manhunt 2" story got a lot funnier a couple of weeks ago when it was widely reported that the fully playable uncensored version for the PS2 was available for download in various locations. It made me chuckle to say the least, but it was no surprise - I knew this would happen sooner or later.

The gaming world wants "Manhunt 2" and it wants it unedited and uncensored. I'm not saying that the final release isn't a great game even though lots of gore has been taken out of it, but the uncensored version is really the game as it was meant to be, and that's way the gamers want it.

It's later been revealed that the leak that put the game out there for download was someone working at Sony in Europe. Normally I wouldn't condone this sort of behavior, making intellectual property available for illegal download I mean, but in this case I say give the guy a friggin' medal!

I have no idea why this guy took the risk and did what he did, but I'm hoping it has to do with him being someone who actually gives a shit about gaming as an art form and understands that as such the uncensored game deserves to be made available.

More than anything though, this effectively shows that censorship doesn't work and is just plain stupid. Just like me and my friends found a way to get uncut copies of gory horror movies back when I was a teenager, as long as an uncensored version exists of a game or any other kind of media, it will eventually end up in the hands of those who really want it.

So let grown ups decide for themselves what they want to play or watch. Period. Censorship is stupid and doesn't work.

And give us the spoils of your canceled projects. Now.

WoW, what a retard...

2007-10-27T10:15:00.000+01:00

I always suspected it takes some sort of mental disorder to really get into "World Of Warcraft". I think this video pretty much proves me right, no matter if it's supposed to be a joke or not.

And why the hell is there Celine Dion playing in the background about 8:30 into the video? This guys a dork if I ever saw one.

Real men play "Resident Evil 4" on the Nintendo Wii motherfucker. And I'll pwn your ass in "Wii Sports" too bitch ;-)

What time is it?

2007-10-23T22:07:00.000+01:00

Seriously now, what's up with all these huge clocks that seem to be a part of every piece of software these days? These things are everywhere!

Windows Vista's desktop gadget application? Huge frickin' clock. Google Desktop? Huge frickin' clock. iGoogle homepage? Huge frickin' clock.

Has every computer user suddenly become half-blind or forgotten how to read the ordinary clock that's been part of desktop systems for twenty years now? I don't get it.

And the Idiot-Of-The-Month award goes to...

2007-10-22T20:27:00.000+01:00

Akira Yamaoka, the sound designer for "Silent Hill V"! In a recent interview on Wired this Konami employee is quited as saying in response to if there will be a version of said game for the Nintendo Wii:

No plans. The Wii user isn't a hardcore user.

What the fuck?! I'm so friggin' tired of all this "hardcore gamer" bullshit. I love the Nintendo Wii, I can play it for hours and hours until my hands bleed, and I play all kinds of games too.

Sure, I play "Wii Sports" like a maniac at times, and I indulge myself in a lot of retro gaming courtesy of the Virtual Console. And of course I love that silly plumber and just about every game he's been featured in, especially the "Mario Kart" series. But I also play games like "Resident Evil 4", which is as hardcore as they come with it's gallons of blood splatter and delicious horrors galore, and I've been looking forward to the gruesome and very adult "Manhunt 2" for the Wii since practically forever.

But apparently I'm not "hardcore" since I'm playing the Wii and not an easily overcooked red-ring-of-death flashing Xbox 360 or an overpriced brick with less than five good games like the PlayStation 3. Give me a break...

I've got a big "fuck you" right here for Mr. Yamaoka and anybody else that insists on this "Wii is not for hardcore gamers" crap. In fact, I'll take on anybody claiming this in the steel cage and we'll see who's hardcore or not. And Akira, that means you too. Bring it on bitch.

So a free iPhone wasn't enough for ya?

2007-10-22T17:02:00.000+01:00

This is too funny. Take that, you greedy bastards! And iPhwned == hilarious.

Xbox Media Center 2.0, I finally updated

2007-10-21T09:11:00.000+01:00

I finally got around to updating my Xbox with the latest version of Xbox Media Center and damn, a lot has certainly happened in the three and a half years that have passed since my previous version was released.

Yeah, that's right I was running a version from 2004 and yes, it's scandalous. So enough about that.

The reason it's taken so long is that up until recently it's been sufficient for my needs and working flawlessly. But lately I've stumbled upon several media-files that have been giving me problems so I cracked and got myself an upgrade.

XBMC has really matured and I gotta say that now it's about as good as a media center application can get. I've been wracking my brain the past ten minutes trying to think of a feature that I really miss, but just can't think of one. That's how good I think it's gotten. It's free, it's open and it's very, very usable. What more can you ask for really?

It's displaying movies in real 16:9 ratio on my big screen LCD-TV, and, even though I might be imagining this, I believe the quality of the media looks better than before. I just can't praise this software enough. Until there's something like this for the Xbox 360 the original black monster is still the better of the two, no matter how many awesome games there are for the 360.

The scripts addition I especially like. Being able to easily watch movie trailers from Apple.com for example directly on my Xbox rocks my socks off.

All this and "Halo" too! Praise the Xbox! Praise the modchip! And especially praise the Xbox Media Center developers!

Mine! All mine!

2007-10-20T19:07:00.000+01:00

Bought me a new, although used, computer the other day. I've been looking for a machine to use as a fileserver (running NFS, Samba and such) and stumbled upon an auction for a dual-processor PowerMac G4. I really love the way those boxes look so I decided this was to be my fileserver.

The specifications for this model of PowerMac are not that impressive, 450MHz processors hardly scare anybody even when they come in pairs, but there are some pretty neat upgrades that can be made for a reasonable sum of money and that would make it a fairly powerful beast.

I won the bidding however and I'm picking it up on Tuesday next week. Yay me!

11 days 'til Samus

2007-10-15T19:55:00.000+01:00

Do you own a Nintendo Wii? Is it hooked up to the internet?

Well then... Have you downloaded the free preview clips of "Metroid Prime 3: Corruption" yet?

If not... WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!?

The clips are very cool and if I was interested in this game before I'm completely obsessed with it now. I'm so happy that the really awesome games finally are starting to pour over the Wii, just like it deserves.

October 26th will be a glorious day in video gaming history, that I am sure of.

So much for selling your soul to the devil Novell...

2007-10-14T11:20:00.000+01:00

Begun the Linux wars has...

As reported and thoroughly investigated in this article on Groklaw a lawsuit has been brought to Linux-distributors Novell and Red Hat. In the article a good case is made for who's really behind the lawsuit (no, it's not really the plaintiff IP Innovation..) and you guessed it, it's Microsoft.

This should come as no surprise though. We all know that Microsoft are scared shitless of the little penguin that could, particularly Steve Ballmer it seems. In my opinion, unlike in the SCO-case this time they're not even trying to hide that it's them behind it all. The trail back to them is not very elaborate and good 'ole Stevie B. even predicted that a lawsuit was on it's way just the other day, which makes it look like he said "we could do this" and then went on and proved it. Not very smooth if they really were trying to remain the secret backer of yet another patent-claim catastrophe.

Interestingly enough Apple were previously attacked by IP Innovation with a similar claim and apparently have now paid the patent-trolls in order to keep them quiet.

Novell must be damn proud of themselves right now. First they sell their soul to Microsoft and now they're being stabbed in the back. Nice one, Stevie.

USB on/off-switch mod

2007-09-30T16:49:00.000+01:00

Last week I got the idea to create a USB-cable with an on/off-switch. This because I have several USB-devices (mug heater, mug chiller, reading light, battery charger, etc.) that have no on/off-switch and I think it's really tiresome having to unplug them every time I want them turned off.

So I looked up USB on Wikipedia and learned, amongst other things, that the 5V power that a USB-port supplies travels through the red wire inside the USB-cable. So it should really not be any more difficult than just cutting the red cable and connecting the ends to an ordinary on/off-switch that you can buy in any store that carries electronics and such.

It took me a couple of tries to get it right though. Inside a USB-cable there's not just the four wires (red, black, green and white) that send power and data back and forth but also foil that wraps around all four wires and a bunch of thin metallic wires and apparently this foil and possibly also the metallic wires should not be removed when pealing the outer insulation off the USB-cable because then it will not work. It took me three USB-cables to figure that one out. Very frustrating.

But anyway, on the third try I got it right and I now have a USB-cable with a nice on/off-switch mounted on it and I can turn my mug chiller on and off just like I do the reading lamp by my bed. Mission accomplished.

Windows Vista provides the greatest user experience ever

2007-09-27T11:23:00.000+01:00

Yeah, you got me. That sure was sarcasm.

A couple of weeks ago I assisted my dad in buying a new laptop. Their old laptop was state of the art when they bought it about five years ago, but today it's not really cutting it. So, time to buy a new one.

We went to the Sony Center and there my dad fell in love a pretty sweet Vaio-machine. It's really a damn sexy piece of hardware and after inspecting the specs I gave it the thumbs-up. Only one problem really, it ran Windows Vista.

Now why is this a problem besides the fact that I loathe Windows? Well, it's no secret that plenty of people that have gone from Windows XP to Vista have had and still are having a shitload of problems with Microsoft's new and sparkly OS. My dad is not a complete computer imbecile at all, he's a pretty ordinary user. He does some e-mail, surfs the web, plays some simple online games, does his banking online, organizes photos from his digital camera and things like that. Nothing fancy, nothing very advanced or odd at all.

So, while I was sceptical I thought that since good 'ole dad's computer habits were nothing out of the ordinary I said "what the hell" and hoped for the best.

Silly me. Stupid damn fuckin' silly me.

I assisted with starting up the new laptop, installing all of the bundled software (Norton Security-stuff, a bunch of Google-apps, etc.) and configured it as best I could (remember that this was my first hands-on experience with Vista and that I haven't been a regular Windows-user for over six years) and when I left my parents' house it seemed to be working fine.

It took about two days until I received the first desperate call from my dad about his new computer "not working". I googled some stuff and helped him out as well as I could over the phone. That was just the first of a seemingly never-ending series of calls, and all of them had to do with the new and fancy features in Vista fucking up my dad's computing experience. In most cases I managed to hook him up with some sort of temporary work-around to the problem that he could live with until I had the time to get over there and get under the hood of the thing.

This week however things got so bad that my dad called me to say that he needs the old laptop back (I'd borrowed it to do some experimenting on) because the new one was completely unusable to him.

He couldn't send e-mail properly, no applications except Internet Explorer 7 were allowed access to the internet, every time he tried to do just about anything useful he was driven mad by a bombardment of security pop-ups, the list goes on and on. What finally did it though was that IE and Vista wouldn't allow him to install the certificate for his bank, thus making it impossible to pay their bills online. Awesome. Now tell me what's so great about Vista again? Fuck.

So here's someone that uses computers at work and has been using Windows XP both at home and at work for the past five years. Not a dimwit at all, actually pretty computer-savvy for a man in his late fifties. He goes out and buys a brand new awesome computer for $1800 with the "latest and greatest OS" and after three weeks he switches back to his old piece of cyberjunk because he's being terrorized by Vista. Good one Microsoft.

Seriously, Vista must be the biggest piece of shit ever released by Microsoft. When experienced XP-users can't get the damn thing to work properly you gotta call it a freakin' failure, because that's what it is. I don't give a rat's ass if it's "more secure" (I doubt it) or looks snazzier than XP. It's completely unusable to ordinary computer users as proven by my dad and many others I've read about online.

If it wasn't for my dad having to run a few work-specific applications (which requires Windows) on his computer I'd have him buying a Mac or switching to Linux in a heartbeat.

And you know I'm gonna have to go over there next week and spend a hundred hours "fixing" that brand new Sony Vaio. Just because it's been soiled by Vista. Damn.

Windows Vista is a sad piece of shit and once again Microsoft should be ashamed of themselves for releasing such a pathetic excuse for an operating system.

Memory upgrade day

2007-09-25T20:37:00.000+01:00

Yeah, bitches! I can has memory upgrade on all my computaz!

And life on this side of 4 Gigs of memory is schwee-ee-eet, that I can tell y'all!

Hilarious competition! Win a Wii!

2007-09-16T13:21:00.000+01:00

If I didn't already own a Nintendo Wii and could get my friggin' webcam to work on my Linux-box I'd so enter this:

OK, now you lost me again Apple

2007-09-16T11:41:00.000+01:00

I long since accepted the fact that I don't need an iPod. It wouldn't make any sense at all for me to get one, especially since I loathe iTunes and if you don't live your life according to what is dictated by iTunes, your iPod is pretty much a crippled device. Also, I only have one Mac-computer (my iBook) and all my other boxes run Linux, so even if I swallowed my pride and started using iTunes it would still be a pain in the ass. So, no iPod for me.

However, lately I've heard from friends and fellow Linux-zealots that there are application available that actually work pretty well if you want to use an iPod with your Linux-computer. I've been told good things about Amarok for example, and there have been other pieces of software mentioned as well. This has naturally gotten me thinking that maybe an iPod could be in the cards for me after all.

But nooooooo, Apple doesn't want me to buy their hardware as is proven by what they've come up with for the current generation of iPods. From the article:

The latest iPods have a cryptographic "checksum" in their song databases that prevents third-party applications from synching with the portable music players. This means that iPods can no longer be used with operating systems where iTunes doesn't exist -- like Linux, where gtkpod and Amarok are common free tools used by iPod owners to load their players.
Notice that this has nothing to do with piracy -- this is about Apple limiting the choices available to people who buy their iPod hardware.

What the fuck Steve? Why the hell would you do something like this? That's just plain evil and stupid as hell.

It's not gonna get anybody to switch to Mac that hasn't already done so. I mean, it's not like I'm gonna go out and replace all of my Linux-boxes with MacPros and iMacs just so that I can bask in the glory of iPod-ownership. That would be really stupid.

Instead, Apple have just decided for me that if I buy myself some sort of portable mediaplayer in the future it will not be an iPod. I know they'll get buy pretty well without my $299 but it strikes me as odd and damn stupid that they'd actively reject some customers in this manner, especially since the existence and development of iPod-software for other platforms than the Mac doesn't impact Apple in any negative way what so ever. It expands their user base without costing them a dime.

Real dumb Steve, outright moronic really.

Updated my Twitter-widget

2007-09-04T20:38:00.000+01:00

If anybody gives a shit I updated my Twitter-widget tonight. It now parses URLs in the text and turns them into links, and I also tweaked the CSS a bit.

You can download it from the same 'ole place. Enjoy!

And you Mr. Internetsupportman are an idiot

2007-09-04T13:04:00.000+01:00

The past three months or so I've been experiencing some problems with my internet connection. It works and is stable like it should be, the problem is though that it's waaaay slower than it should be.

When I measured it three months ago I had a download speed of about 12 Mb/s, which is OK. But since then it has decreased to about half and that is simply not acceptable. So today on my lunch hour I went home and called my provider. Little did I know that I would be talking to the biggest moron in internet support ever.

After waiting in line for five minutes I get to talk to Mr. Internetsupportman and here's how it went:

Me: Hello, my name is so-and-so and I have a problem... (I explain my problem as per above)
Mr. Internetsupportman: According to my measurements you're connection is fine. You have 14 Mbit/s.
Me: No, I don't. I used TPTest and tested and it clearly states that my speed is way lower than that.
Mr. Internetsupportman: You know that TPTest is only reliable 80% of the time don't you? (Note: this might very well be bullshit, I've never heard anything like that about TPTest)
Me: Well, even if it is I've been doing these tests every day for weeks and it shows the same results every time. I think it's safe to say that TPTest is not the problem here.

Mr. Internetsupportman then starts to blame all manner of things for my decrease in speed ("your cables could be busted", "is your router properly configured?", "maybe you have a weird firewall or antivirus software?", "your network card is probably old and defective"), and I claim him to be wrong in every single case. I'm not running any particular firewall or antivirus software on the computer doing the test (my iBook G4), I've done the test straight into the modem without my router and I know there is nothing wrong with my hardware.

He's basically trying to bullshit me so I'll give up and stop bothering him. Well, that didn't make me give up but little did I know what kind of superior moronic firepower I was up against. The conversation continues...

Mr. Internetsupportman: Did you say you ran TPTest from a Mac?
Me: Yes, it's an iBook. So yes, it's a Mac.
Mr. Internetsupportman: Well, you see these days Macs run Unix which is a very safe and stable system. But you see, Unix demands a lot of resources so I think that's probably your problem. Could you run TPTest from a PC?

WTF?!?! So because my Mac runs Unix (or Mac OS X in reality), which it has done since I bought it a couple of years ago, all of my computers are experiencing a slower connection? This guy is clearly an idiot.

Me: But it's not just the Mac that's feeling the decrease in speed. All of my computers are having the same problem. I clearly notice the difference from now and three months ago no matter what computer I use.
Mr. Internetsupportman: I don't know what to tell you. From here your connection looks fine. Can you run TPTest again, but from a PC this time?
Me: Sure. I'll do that. (and this is where I hang up)

Seriously, how much dumbass bullshit is it possible to shovel in one day? I just gave up at this point and hung up because this guy had obviously crawled out of the ocean just 20 minutes ago.

I'm calling them back when I get home from work though. Hopefully I'll get to speak to someone with at least a quarter of a brain this time.

MySpace - BAD! Facebook - better? We'll see.

2007-08-31T11:53:00.000+01:00

I make no efforts to hide the fact that I think MySpace is a skidmark in the underpants of web 2.0 and more or less represents everything that is wrong with the internet today. I loathe MySpace basically.

Most of my ill thoughts towards MySpace is because of the way they let people bombard their pages with all manner of crap making most of the pages on the site completely unviewable unless you wanna risk an epileptic episode of grand proportions. I agree that people having bad taste and no judgment is not the fault of MySpace, I already knew that people are idiots way before MySpace got into the game, but the core of the matter is that MySpace is the enabler here. There are tons of other communities that look really neat and that don't make my brain's synapses lapse into a screaming rage when I visit them.

The only thing that I actually enjoy with MySpace, and that I repeatedly curse for being a feature of said website and not some other site less worthy of my hatred, is what it's done for underground music. It's awesome to be able to go on there and listen to and occasionally download songs with less known bands worthy of greater fame. This is, as I see it, MySpace's only feature worth any praise and the only reason that I don't want it completely wiped off the internet.

Sure, it's probably nice that MySpace helps people keep in touch and stuff like that, but that's hardly anything new as far as online-communities go. I've been active on various communities on and off during the past ten years but none of them have even come close to being the cesspool of bad taste and animated GIFs gone wild that is MySpace. This is why I would rather choose almost any other community out there over MySpace.

I actually had a MySpace-account once, but I closed it down after a few months because I just couldn't live with being a part of it. That's how bad I think it is.

It was brought to my attention today through an article on TechCrunch that MySpace are apparently not only enablers of crap but also testy bastards that enjoy shutting down companies that supply services linked to the MySpace-site, i.e. companies that add value to their business without it costing them anything except some bandwidth and CPU-time.

In this web 2.0 day and age I think this is pretty appalling and it's just another reason to steer clear of MySpace. Sure, they're looking into opening up their platform to developers, something that Facebook, Flickr, Twitter and a myriad of other web 2.0 sites have already done aeons ago, but even if they do they're pretty late to the dance and with them having behaved badly towards third party developers already I'm guessing that such a venture could be actually be a failure.

I have very little experience with up and comer Facebook, practically none actually. But although I've told several of my friends that have wanted me to get on there that I'm not interested in another generic online community, I'm actually now thinking about setting up an account. This is partly to check out what all the fuss is about but mainly to play around with the site and its API. Yeah, I know that's a really dorky reason but hey, that's what I am - a dork.

Plus, Facebook doesn't give the members the right to soil their pages with a multi-colored vomit of Flash, animated GIFs and movie-clips. At least, that's what I hear, and if I do set up an account that's what will determine if I stay more than a few minutes or log off immediately and delete my account while screaming profanities at the top of lungs.

Bullshit by any other name is still...

2007-08-24T12:24:00.000+01:00

So Microsoft has decided to pull the plug on the much despised FUD-campaign "Get the facts". In it's place it has erected a new site called "Windows Server compare".

As far as I can see this new site serves the exact same purpose, i.e. to throw dung on Linux, it's just a new name for the same old crap. Completely ridiculous and pointless in other words.

How hard is it to understand that bullshit and lies are just that no matter what you call them?

It is particularly interesting how they seem to come down extra hard on Red Hat, with them being one of the major Linux-distributors that have refused to sign a patent-protection agreement with the devil (unlike Novell and Linspire, for example). "So Red Hat doesn't wanna play with us? Then let's behave like babies and make a site that makes them look bad. Oh, and our dad is stronger than Red Hat's dad." Geez...

Microsoft needs to get a grip and concentrate on improving their deeply flawed software instead of embarking on new hate-campaigns against Linux. This is just plain embarrassing.

One shall stand, and one shall fall

2007-08-16T09:11:00.000+01:00

I AM
77%
MEGATRON Take the Transformers Quiz

Mario Kart to the rescue!

2007-08-13T20:37:00.000+01:00

With both "Manhunt 2" and "Project H.A.M.M.E.R." being effectively shut down the dreams I had for my Wii game collection have been dealt some pretty severe blows the past few months. But now there is once again sunshine on the horizon. "Mario Kart Wii" is coming!

This preview article is showing every Wii fanboy that there is a bright future ahead of us. The screenshots are not very sharp but they reveal enough to make my mouth water and my fingers itch. I want this game now!

I've been in love with the "Mario Kart"-games since practically forever and this one looks like it will be the best one yet. The thought of playing against up to eleven other people online gives me the chills. It will be fucking awesome!

Luckily, since this is a Mario-game there is absolutely no way it will not reach the stores. "Mario Kart Wii" will be mine, and hopefully sooner rather than later. I can hardly wait.

AWESOME.

Off topic, but yummie!

2007-08-13T18:39:00.000+01:00

OK, so this has nothing to do with computers or other tech-stuff but...

Damn, this is some awesome goodness!

Mustard, good! Wasabi, good! Wasabi-mustard, fucking awesome!

So now you know.

And just so you know my girlfriend is the greatest because she's the one that bought this for me!

This is how much of a dork I am

2007-08-10T18:39:00.000+01:00

So we've been visiting my girlfriend's parents for a couple of days and this afternoon we were sitting in the kitchen chatting about this and that. It's a pretty hot and especially clammy day so I glance at the thermometer by the kitchen window to see how hot it actually is. When doing so I also notice the small text at the bottom of the thermometer's front and immediately this makes me think "wow, it would be so cool to have one of those".

The text reads "wireless thermometer"...

Now that's how big of a geek I am. All it takes is the word "wireless" to make me want something. I clearly need help.

Still alive, still gaming

2007-07-30T23:04:00.000+01:00

Yes, I know it's been quite a while since my last update. But I've been real busy with work and other things. In no way have I stopped or even cut down on my gaming and related activities though.

A couple of weeks ago I had a marathon run of "God Of War" which actually left me with a bruise (!) on my left thumb. Oh, how I love this game. It is totally one of the top five games ever in my opinion (I have yet to play "God Of War 2" though..).

I'm also making good headway in "Manhunt" and I believe I'm nearing the end of my blood drenched rampage. I'm enjoying the game quite a bit, and therefor I'm utterly pissed off by the fact that the sequel "Manhunt 2" has been more or less banned around the globe. It just sucks that adults can't decide for themselves what kind of media want to subject themselves to. I for one was looking forward to "Manhunt 2" quite a lot and it saddens me that a game that I believe would have been awesome and a lot of fun now might never be released, and if it ever sees the light of day it will probably be a toned down version. Thanks a lot censorship-fascists. What's next? The banning of all games that don't exclusively feature cute and cuddly creatures? I love Sonic, Mario and games like that but for fuck's sake, I'm 32 years old and I want to be able to play adult games just like I'm able to enjoy other "grown-up" things. Censorship is never the proper way of dealing with things.

I've also made some progress in "The Legend Of Zelda: Twilight Princess", although it's depressing how much I have left considering I've had the game since four or five days after it was released.

I bought "Resident Evil 4 Wii Edition" on release day and I've found to be nothing short of fucking awesome! I haven't played it all that much but enough to be seriously impressed. The wiimote is a perfect fit for this game. Blowing the heads of zombies and angry villagers never was more satisfying than on the Wii.

Speaking of new games, another huge disappointment was the news that "Project H.A.M.M.E.R." seems to have been canceled and will not be released. Possibly it will just be released much later, but I'm not holding my breath. I have no idea why this is but it makes me very sad that I won't be able to play it since I've been looking forward to it A LOT, and it looked like such an awesome game. I want my blunt-force crusher game doggammit! Please Nintendo, rethink your decision and give us this game. I'm begging you.

Also I've immersed myself in some serious retro-gaming. Mostly Sega MegaDrive and games like "Mortal Kombat", "Mortal Kombat II", "Golden Axe" and "The Revenge Of Shinobi", but also plenty of Virtual Console goodies like "Ice Climber", "Kid Icarus" and "Punch-Out!!". Because of my increased amount of retro-gaming I've also had a bit of shopping spree on a couple of auction-sites.

For the MegaDrive I've bought "Golden Axe 2", "Bio Hazard Battle" and "Zero Wing" and for my GameBoy Advance I got "The Legend Of Zelda: A Link to the Past & Four Swords". I also got a couple of PS1 games; "Tenchu: Stealth Assassins" and "Tenchu 2: Birth of the Stealth Assassins".

I've found that "Zero Wing" deserves a lot more credit than it gets. It's actually a really decent shoot-em up. Although I have to confess that I bought it mainly for the hilarious intro-sequence, but that's not the reason I've ended up spending several hours with it the past week. So if you haven't already, please check it out and give it a chance OK?

As if that wasn't enough I also bid for and won "Golden Axe 3", "Thunder Force 4" and a "Mega Key 2", all for the MegaDrive. The last item is a cartridge that makes it possible for me to play games from the US, Japan and Brazil on my European PAL-console (which I need since "Golden Axe 3" for example was only released in Japan). These items have yet to arrive though.

Anyhoo, my summer vacation started today, I celebrated it by playing "Super Smash Bros. Melee" for a couple hours with a friend from work, and I'm looking forward to many more hours of gaming in the forth-coming weeks. Yay!

iPhone hackers work for Apple

2007-07-21T13:04:00.000+01:00

It's been widely reported about various progress in the hacking of the iPhone. A couple of days ago Engadget reported that apparently a hacker named "Nightwatch" has compiled and launched his very own application on the device.

In order to accomplish this feat "Nightwatch" has constructed an ARM/Mach-O toolchain that henceforth can be used by others to follow his example and consequently have third party native applications running on the iPhone instead of just Web 2.0 apps running in the Safari-browser.

Of course this is a positive breakthrough since developers and iPhone-owners have been screaming for an API and the possibility to develop and run real apps on the iPhone. But it shouldn't come as a surprise to anybody. As with all such things they are always broken sooner or later, it's just a matter of how long the apparatus can resist the efforts of it's hackers.

But most of all, I'm very sure this came as no real surprise to Apple. In fact, I'm positive they counted on this happening sooner rather than later, and they surely will reap the major benefits from it.

By releasing a device that's received more pre-release hype than anything I've ever seen before Apple has assured (almost at least) it's success and that it will sell millions of it. By then refusing to give third party developers access to an API or an SDK they've assured that the caffeine-crazed hackers of the world will do their best to break into the device and have it run third party software. Once there is a fairly stable way of developing apps for the iPhone, which shouldn't be far away now, a new market opens up which while not feeding money directly into Apple it does making their money-making product even more desirable. And they've done nothing themselves to make this happens except release the phone and withhold the API, all the real work the hackers have done for them. So basically, they've been working for Apple all along. They've just not gotten paid a dime for their hard and commendable work.

Another positive thing in this scenario, from Apple's point of view, is that as long as no official API or SDK has been released they don't have to deal with support and complaints regarding third party applications. It's not their fault if you installed and ran some app on your iPhone that made it go up in flames since it's not their toolchain that built that app and they certainly didn't license it.

So even if it looks like Apple 0 - Hackers 1, it's really the other way around if you think about it.

Twitterer and widget maker

2007-07-17T17:54:00.000+01:00

The past couple of days I've been playing around with Twitter and it's API. It's pretty simple to use, hardly astrophysics or anything, and with the widget for Blogger looking like ass I decided to hack my own. And so I did.

The fruits of my labour are plainly visible to the right in this blog. It's nothing fancy, just some basic HTML, CSS and Javascript, but I think it looks pretty good. And if anybody gives a damn the code can be downloaded from here.

In the days ahead I'm gonna pleasure myself (oooh...) by writing a Twitter-applet for the Gnome desktop as well. Now don't misinterpret the sudden focus on Twitter. I don't think I'll ever be an avid twitterer (is that a word? probably not) and I'm not exactly falling head over heels with excitement over the thing. I just wanna play around with some free API:s, and for that purpose this one is as good as any. Also, anything that allows me to interact using the command line gets a "yay!" from me.

curl -u someaccount@somedomain.com:somepassword -d status=Posting+to+Twitter+using+curl+is+teh+shit%21 http://twitter.com/statuses/update.json

GPL 3 launches on the 29th of June!

2007-06-28T09:19:00.000+01:00

Now this release is way more important than all the iPhones in the world!

And there will be a live stream too.

I hate the iPhone

2007-06-27T15:44:00.000+01:00

It's not even out yet (unless you're special) and I've never seen one in real life, but damn, do I ever hate the iPhone.

To be more precise it's not the actual gadget I hate as much as all the exaggerated hype and media hoopla surrounding it. For goodness sake people! It's a friggin' cellphone! It's not some magical device that will bring peace, stability and prosperity to the Galaxy.

Goddamnit, there are actually people camping outside of the Apple Store on 5th Avenue in New York already, just to be the first to get one. I'm sorry, but that's simply retarded.

Every damn tech news site I read is completely drowning in iPhone-spam (i.e. repetitive articles about how awesome it will be) and I'm just sick of it. On top of it all now that's it's just a couple of days until release the reviews are starting to pop up. I wanna puke.

But it's not just the hype that gets on my nerves, it's also the fact that I don't see what is really that special about the iPhone. Sure, it's most certainly a nice gadget, Apple's stuff usually is one way or another, but it's not that great. I mean, calm down people.

Just by reading not much more than the specs on Apple's website I quickly find the following serious flaws:

It's just a GSM-phone, i.e. no 3G. That sucks.
No videocamera, and that means no videochat. This from the computer manufacturer with the largest install base of webcams of all. Suck-o-rama.
It can't send MMS-messages. Come fucking on! Can you say "medieval technology"?
The camera is just 2 megapixels. Hardly impressive.
No support for other video-formats than MOV and MP4. That means no DivX/XviD, which means it's hardly an ideal video playing device. More suckage.
You can't use songs as ringtones. Wow, that's really fresh for a cellphone released in 2007.
No removable battery. Are you kidding me?
Non-expandable storage space. No memory-cards, nothing. Oh man, more suckage.
Apple decides what provider you can use, not you. Suckfest deluxe.
And finally, taking into account all of the above, it is way too expensive.
Being a programmer myself I find the lack of an API for the iPhone very disturbing. Sure, Steve says it's all gonna be webapps run from within the phones browser, but no matter how awesome the web2.0 and AJAX revolution is there are still a shitload of things that simply can't be done with webapps. So yes, a real API would be nice.

That said, will someone please give me one real valid reason why this should be seen as such a revolutionary and a must-have item? Yes, I've seen the demo-movie on Apple's website and I know all about the snazzy touch-screen and its glorious sexiness. But hey, the fact that Apple make great user interfaces shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone and still, no matter how awesome the GUI is, it doesn't make up for the lack of features.

Or are you gonna spend the time you would sending MMS-messages to your friends flipping windows about and pinching stuff on the screen instead? And instead of videochatting with your peeps, maybe you can watch a video and gasp in awe when the movie pivots automatically as you rotate the device? Wow dude, that's real productive and worthwhile.

There is basically nothing that the iPhone does that my Nokia N80IE can't do, or at least nothing really significant, and it does everything noted above that the iPhone doesn't. In comparison the new wonder from Apple is a technological cripple. My cellphone (or any other phone out there) is however not enjoying the most tremendous tidal wave of hype ever like the iPhone is.

So for $499 I could buy a phone that compared to my current cellphone more or less sucks but has the power to make all Apple-fanboys wet themselves in awe? No thanks.

And please stop yapping about it. Really. STOP.

Murderer in training

2007-06-15T22:07:00.000+01:00

I spent four hours yesterday playing "Manhunt" on my PS2 (yeah, I bought one a couple of months ago), so I'm now not far from being a full-fledged killing machine ready to stalk and slash my fellow citizens to death.

And I will do it, oh yes I will, it's just a matter of time now (maybe after I finish the next stage or so?), because Jack Thompson says that's what happens when you play "murder simulators".

Oh man, Jack Thompson is such a dimwitted moron... And I can't wait for "Manhunt 2" on the Wii. That'll be sweet for sure.

Hardcore tourism

2007-06-12T18:40:00.000+01:00

So I went to Italy with my girlfriend and my parents for a much needed one week vacation. We had a great time, good food, plenty of wine and good times.

We visited several cities and lots of places worthy of any tourist, amongst the most tourist-infested was Venice. I did not let the tourist madness make me lose my mind though. I kept it cool and still managed to focus on the really important stuff...

I hear there are lots of pretty architecture, gondolas, bridges and stuff like that to see in Venice. But come on, "Ecks Vs. Sever" on the GameBoy Advance is pretty sweet too!

It's all about the wireless baby

2007-06-12T13:10:00.000+01:00

The last passage from this article nicely delievers a buzzkiller of truth to Eye-Fi's upcoming wi-fi memory cards:

There are currently digital cameras on the market that offer built-in wireless networking, but they haven’t exactly taken the world by storm. Given that you can buy a 2GB memory card for less than US$30, you’ve got to wonder whether consumers will be willing to cough up US$100 just so that they don’t have to go through the hassle of hooking up a USB cable.

Very true, but the sad part is that personally I would easily fork over an additional $70 for some wireless sexiness. You see, I'm a sucker for anything wireless.

Indeed I am. I'll readily admit that I'm a total sucker for any and all wireless gadgets. It's like a disease. I just can't help myself. I just find the "no need for cables"-thing so cool, even if it is hardly a new and revolutionary thing by now. It doesn'tmatter if I really need the gadget in question or not, if it's wireless it is just that much sexier to me and I want it bad.

I remember fondly back in the eighties when our family got our first TV that came with a remote control. It was the coolest thing ever! Just imagine the joy of not having to get up and walk over to the TV when flipping the channel! Now that's life changing technology if there ever was any.

Bluetooth, wi-fi, even infrared, I love them all. Sweet wireless technology be mine, now and forever.

So work is out is out of the question.. Wii anyone?

2007-06-02T18:02:00.000+01:00

We had a temporary power outage at work the other day, and because of this the IT-department (where I work) was left without any means to do any real work. So we basically got a couple of hours off until the electricians could get the power working again.

So this is what we did:

Yeah, that's right - Wii Sports Boxing! Our sysadmin lives just across the street and he has a Wii. Kick ass!

I'm hoping for a power outage once a week from now on ;-)

That's me on the right by the way...

Not quite dead

2007-05-25T17:24:00.000+01:00

In a recent article Computer World lists the "top 10 dead (or dying) computer skills", some of the spots on the list I agree with but some I don't.

One that I totally don't agree with is number six, "C programming". Anyone who claims that the C language is dead or dying simply doesn't see the software industry for everything it is and doesn't understand how many different kinds of software there is out there.

Fine, you might not see the latest snazzy web applications from Google being written in C or even a huge amount of desktop-applications for that matter (even if I believe that quite a lot of the Linux/Unix-apps are written in C, the Linux-kernel for one). But that doesn't mean there isn't a shitload of software everywhere around us written in C.

To my knowledge most embedded software is written in C. Things like controller software for household appliances, cellphones and such things, devices like that all have a fair chunk of C spinning through their circuits.

Another great example is GNU/Linux-software. The Linux-kernel is written entirely in C I believe and so is most of the apps that make up the GNU-toolset.

So basically, C is not dead or dying. Claiming that almost makes you an idiot.

The claim that the languages Cobol and ColdFusion are dying however, I can basically agree with that. They're not dead though. I don't think it's fair to pronounce a language like Cobol as dead since there is still so damn much software out there that's written in this archaic language.

The reason there's still many mission critical pieces of Cobol code, or any dying language for that matter, running out there is simply that there are a heck of a lot of legacy systems that haven't been upgraded, rewritten and so on. The reason for that is, in my experience, that most companies are cheapskates.

Rather than invest the time and money in upgrading an ancient system they have their developers spend time on patching the system with horrible work-arounds and crappy add-ons just to keep it going. If anybody were to suggest a complete redesign and rebuild of an existing system somebody close to the company's finances probably would say "Why? It still works, doesn't it?" and shut it down with a suggestion of patching it some more if there are any problems with it.

Pretty much the only thing that'll convince the people at the top of the company food chain that a new system needs to be developed is if the old one crashes and burns completely. When that happens though, the software people are most likely to be blamed for it and having a shiny new software bundle in place and up and running will be something that will be expected of them in a snap more or less.

I really wish that the people handling the money in companies that rely on IT for their business had a little more knowledge as to what IT and software is about and how it works. That way we'd see less and less of things like medieval systems running Windows 3.11 software patched into oblivion, and I can guarantee you that most developers would me happier with putting in some extra hours building something new and exciting than spending their days fixing and working around the short-comings of ancient code bases.

I don't get how some people still have jobs

2007-05-11T12:47:00.000+01:00

I don't get how some people still have jobs. Not with the moronic things they think up and say. Like this guy, HBO's chief technology officer Bob Zitter, who probably makes millions every year.

His latest mindvomits are possibly the stupidest things that've been said the past week (I can't be sure though, haven't checked up on George W. Bush in a while). It's already been reported on in plenty of places online (here, here and here for example) and the verdicts are unanimous, the man has no concept what so ever of what DRM is or the kind of problems people have with it.

To him DRM is just some acronym that he's been told will help HBO make even more money. He doesn't give a shit about the crippling and annoying effects of DRM and I'm seriously questioning if he even knows how pissed off the public is with it.

Digital Consumer Enablement, would more accurately describe technology that allows consumers "to use content in ways they haven't before," such as enjoying TV shows and movies on portable video players like iPods.

Wow, that's a load of bullshit so thick and heavy that it can't even be shoveled with an industrial strength shoveling-machine. Way to go Bob. You really are a retard.

Please tell me Bob, about these "enabling" effects. What is it that I can do with the media I lawfully buy that isn't possible without it being maimed by DRM?

I'll tell you what: NOTHING. Absolutely nothing. The consumer doesn't want DRM, you do and only you. DRM, DCE or whatever you call it is a contraption put in place to limit what the consumer can do with the product that he's bought and paid for. It does jack-shit against piracy.

If I was to download an illegal digital copy of a movie I could most likely play that movie in any of my multimedia-devices (Xbox, cellphone, DVD-player, computer, etc.). The same would not be possible with a movie bought and downloaded from iTunes Store for example. It only plays on a select number of devices and using special software. So consequently the only people annoyed with DRM are the ones that obey the law. The pirates don't give a rat's ass, their media is free to play on any multimedia-device with support for the encoding-format of the mediafile.

Many of the most monumental struggles throughout history one way or another have to do with freedom. Somebody wants freedom, while somebody else refuses to grant it to them. This is the very same thing. The consumers want the freedom to use media they've paid for in any way they choose, the media-corporations will not let them.

But believe you me, sooner or later the consumers will get fed up with it and the media-corporations will be the ones suffering losses in revenue and possibly even bankruptcy if they don't get their heads straight in time.

It's time they wake up and realize that the old economical models that have kept them afloat for the past century need to be revised for the digital future, and the sooner the better.

No more DRM. Free all media now.

Oh, and Bob... I hope you lose your job very soon. You sure as hell don't deserve it you idiot. Fuck off.

And this is one of the reason I will never let anybody else touch my computer(s)

2007-05-08T17:17:00.000+01:00

This is just fantastic.

We don't have this disease Geek Squad in Sweden where I live but from the enormous amounts of articles about them I've found online I have a pretty good idea what they are.

Basically it's the inhuman corporate machine dressing up as the cute and geeky computer guy and the unfortunate people that don't know better go there to get their hardware fixed and end up taking a grenade up the poop-shoot, right?

Not only have previous employees admitted to downloading private images and stuff from their customer's harddrives, but now they're actually saying that they'd raid a harddrive simply handed to them by a customer claiming some sort of relation to the owner of the harddrive. I'm no legal expert but this has to be illegal!

This is one of the reasons I will never let anybody but myself come close enough to meddle with my data. I would never drop my computer off at a service shop. I'd rather go buy a new one honestly. Not that I really have anything real to hide, every warmblooded male with internet access has gigabytes of porn stashed somewhere and anybody who says otherwise is a liar, but on the other hand I have nothing weird or criminal stored in my closet and I wouldn't let some complete stranger ransack that either.

It's a question of personal integrity. I don't want people I don't know all up in my business fidgeting about. My stuff is mine, so hands off. That, and the fact that people simply cannot be trusted because they are... well... human! So not only will they view my personal stuff but, as proven by the Geek Squad confessions, they will make copies and steal my stuff too. What if I had blueprints for some awesome invention in there and some snotty teenager stole them and sold to someone? That would really be no fun at all.

I understand that not all people are IT-professionals and that Joe Schmoe or Auntie Bea on occasion needs help with his or her computer, but with all the shit that's been raining on Geek Squad I don't see how they are even staying in business. Is it that people in general don't read ANY of the sites I read (I've seen stuff on Geek Squad on at least twenty different sites) or are they really that oblivious to what's bad for them? Or could it be that they just don't know that there are other places that also fix computers? And by that I'm not saying that some other place will not rip you off, because they will if you go to the wrong place.

I don't know, it's just crazy to me, and it makes me even more happy about the fact that I can handle my own computer hardware better than most.

I'm sorry, but you're too much of an asshole for that cellphone

2007-04-22T19:34:00.000+01:00

One recent occurrence in our high technological society that really ticks me off is that of people with MP3-playing cellphones that walk around with music playing through the cellphone-speaker. You've probably stumbled upon a couple of these morons roaming our streets and shopping malls yourself.

They wander around with (most of the time) third rate bullshit R'n'B streaming from the substandard and loudly crackling speakers of their cellphones as if everybody in the world had the same crappy taste in music that they have.

Hey fuckheads, I'm not interested in listening to R-Kelly against my will while I'm shopping for groceries OK? Turn the shit off right now dumbass!

What is it that motivates these morons to terrorize their surrounds like this?

It can't be that they think the song is so awesome that they simply have to share it with everybody, because there's no chance in hell of making out wether it's a good song or not when it's wailing from a tiny speaker on somebody's cellphone and completely destroyed by distortion.

Could it be that they think somebody will be impressed that they own a MP3-cellphone? If so, they're even dumber than I thought. Hey cockbrains, everybody and their dog has a cellphone that plays MP3s these days, it doesn't make you special!

I suggest that cellphone dealers from here on give their customers an IQ-test and check for any signs of an asshole personality before selling them an MP3-cellphone. If they don't, I just might be arrested for assaulting a moron with his own cellphone in the near future.

Cellphone-toting assholes of the world, consider yourselves warned.

Link is my homeboy

2007-04-17T21:54:00.000+01:00

I finally took some time to clear some more of "Legend of Zelda: Twilight princess" for the Nintendo Wii and I gotta say I'm loving it more and more for every minute of gaming.

I never thought that a Zelda-game could be spooky like this one is from time to time, while at the same time maintaining the same childish playfulness that I've grown accustomed to from playing the previous games in the series.

So I just finished a two hour and twenty eight minute session and I can't wait until the next time I can clear my schedule enough to immerse myself in this game again.

Awesome, just plain awesome, is what it is.

And also mad props and love to my girlfriend for letting me hog the living room TV for almost three hours on a weeknight ;-)

Taking web 2.0 too far

2007-04-14T11:54:00.000+01:00

Today in our digital age everybody is, or should be, worried about their personal integrity and paranoid about being watched and having their internet-habits recorded. New "1984"-esque laws have been taken into effect or at least proposed by people that wish to take away our rights and enslave us by the very tools that gave us digital freedom in the first place.

Enter Cluztr, quite possibly the most moronic browser-extension ever.

This piece of software let's you surf the web in a more "social" manner, i.e. other users will be able to read your browser history in real time! But wait, there's more. It let's you (and other users) see who is reading the page you're currently on and (wait for it...) you can send them messages! Yay! How very goddamn "web 2.0"...

Isn't this taking the whole "web 2.0, let's be a community on the internet"-thing a quite a bit too far? Why the hell would I want other people to know about my surfing habits? Why would I want to share my browser history with the whole online planet? It's just stupid, plain and simple, and the only people jumping on this bandwagon will be morons and teenagers who have already been MySpace-lobotomized.

And what's with the name? "Oh, I'm so hip and down with the next generation of teh internets that I can't spell. I'm so cool and web 2.0. I speak fluent Ruby On Rails and all my web applications are Beta too." Retards.

I think I'm gonna start a website where people can share their email inbox with each other. Wouldn't that be awesome? Everybody can read everybody's emails and leave comments about them? Awesome! Totally web 2.0 too! I think I'll call it stupdfuckr.com. Cool name huh? Very web 2.0.

No, Linux can't save Palm. It's just not that simple.

2007-04-12T11:09:00.001+01:00

It has been widely reported that Palm Computing is gonna put out PDAs in the near future that run on Linux-based software.

Almost as widely, articles like this have been popping up asking the in my opinion very silly question: "Can Linux save Palm?"

To anybody that knows anything about Linux, who actually knows what it is, the obvious answer is "NO". Linux is an operating system kernel, not a magic wand. Simply basing your new product on Linux will not make the product an instant success, although Linux is truly awesome and I love it to bits (and bytes).

Just like a flashy car will not make you a world-class race car driver, Palm Computings new PDAs based on Linux will not automatically be awesome products, boost sales and save the company. The software will probably be better and more stable, but the decline in purchases of PDAs is by no means simply an effect of previously crummy software. The time for the PDA is simply over. The new king of the hill is the cellphone.

A high-end smartphone/cellphone today does everything a PDA is supposed to do and everybody already has one. Take my cellphone for example, a Nokia N80. This phone plays music and videos, it has a really good calendar that helps me remember and keep track of things, I can read PDFs and MS Office files with it, it's got bluetooth, wifi, GPRS and 3G to connect me to other devices and the world, and loads of other crap that I have yet to discover. Now tell me, why would I need a PDA? I wouldn't.

My phone isn't even the most advanced cellphone out there. There are smartphones that are twice as expensive and that contain even more software and magic than mine does. It is my firm belief that the advancements made in cellphone technology have effectively killed the PDA and that's the bottom line ('cuz Stone Cold said so).

Basically the only reason for owning a PDA these days is because you love gadgets and need to have more of them. Otherwise, you'll settle for a modern cellphone.

Xbox 360 Elite will be released with a slight limp

2007-04-02T11:02:00.000+01:00

OK, so the Xbox 360 Elite is on it's way and all the fanboys are so psyched. But over at Gizmodo there's a story that reveal some unflattering details about the much longed for HDMI-addition that the Elite sports.

Apparently the cheapskates at Microsoft have chosen to not supply the Xbox 360 Elite with HDMI 1.3 but with HDMI 1.2 instead. This is particularly odd, as someone commented on Gizmodo, since TrueHD and DD+ (which are the advantages 1.3 holds over 1.2) are optional on BluRay but mandatory on HD-DVD (the chosen HD-format of the Xbox 360). The choice of 1.2 over 1.3 thus makes absolutely no sense.

Are they doing this to save a buck? Because if so, that's just retarded. I mean, how big can the difference be in manufacturing costs? A dollar maybe? Even if the Elite sells two million copies in the first quarter after it's release that's still not even close to a dent in Microsofts economy. For fuck's sake, two million dollars is not more than lunch money for Steve Ballmer.

If you're gonna upgrade the Xbox 360 then please do it right, go all the way and don't be cheap about it. It's bad enough that the HD-DVD drive wasn't included in the new package. Cheap fuckers.

Yep, it's the "Super Mario Bros." theme - with lyrics!

2007-03-25T15:10:00.001+01:00

OK, so this has already been reported lately by the awesome Destructoid.com but it just cracks me up so I had to post it here too.

I so need this game to come out!!!

2007-03-23T22:26:00.001+01:00

Adblock

It's coming sometime in 2007. Last I heard it was June but that seems like years away since I want it so much!

Must. Smash. Robots. With. Huge. Hammer. NOW.

Oh, and the game is "Project H.A.M.M.E.R." for those of you not familiar with it already.

The allure of Apple

2007-03-22T23:28:00.000+01:00

I don't get it. I'm usually a pretty rational individual. I'm good friends with "logical choices" and "smart thinking". Usually, that is...

So why the hell do I always lose my mind over Apple's products? There's something about them that always gives me a serious itch for new gadgets.

I don't need a MacBook. I already own a two year old iBook (12", G4) which is still doing it's job (mostly acting as an expensive toy for surfing the net from my couch) very well. So why the hell do I want a MacBook?

I don't need a MacPro. I already own several high-end PCs that run Linux, enables me to do everything that I need to do (and a whole lot of unnecessary stuff too) and basically kick serious ass. So why the hell do I want a MacPro?

I don't need a MacMini. See above for the reasons why. So why the hell do I want a MacMini?

I don't need an iPod. I already own a very expensive top-of-the-line mobile phone that plays music and movies just fine. So why the hell do I want an iPod?

And finally...

I don't need an Apple TV. I have absolutely no use for it. Quite honestly I'm not even sure I know exactly what it does. So why the hell do I want an Apple TV?

This is a pure hardware urge too. Don't get me wrong, I love Mac OS X and all, but Linux is still my number one choice for an operating system. As a matter of fact, I'd probably install Linux on some of the above mentioned hardware rather than keep their pre-installed operating software. Or at least set up some sort of dual boot.

Luckily, I've managed to mostly keep my urges under control this far. But they're still there and I keep drifting in to Apple's website again and again, reading about the stuff and drooling over pictures.

I need help. Or just a truckload of cash.

Yes, that's my iBook in the picture. Yes, the light is blue and not the ordinary white. Yes, I know it's awesome. Worship me. And my iBook.

An urge has been awakened

2007-03-21T20:36:00.000+01:00

I have to say that I've never felt any particular attraction to the PlayStation 2 (or the original PlayStation for that matter. But after seeing this clip from the PS2 exclusive game "God Of War", I, for the first time in my life, feel that maybe I really need a PS2 after all.

I can't put my finger on it but there is something about this game that calls out to me and urges me to play it, no matter what the cost. And I'm kicking myself that it's taken so long for me to recognize it as the masterpiece that it really appears to be. You see, I've been largely ignoring it since it is just available for the PS2, although hearing plenty of people praising it and reading plenty of rave reviews of it.

Possibly, I'll just try and borrow a PS2 and the game from somebody. But I'm not sure that'll do. You see, I like owning stuff ;-)

Oh well, just another thing to start saving up for I guess. But, damn, it itches in my gamer hands when I see clips from that game. Grrrr....

Spicing up your e-mail signature for fun and... well... fun!

2007-03-21T20:04:00.000+01:00

Recently I got tired of my e-mail signature always looking the same. It bored me but I'm a bit too lazy to be changing it myself very often. So I figured out a way to spice it up a little and make it update itself automatically.

The tools I used for this tiny little project was the neat little application fortune and cron.

If you're using any sort of real operating system you already have cron installed. Chances are that you have fortune as well, but if you don't it shouldn't be very hard to find from some repository or other download source. If you are, like me, a Fedora Core user you will find it in the extras repository.

What fortune does is that it outputs a random quote taken from an installed database of quotes. There are plenty of funny and interesting quotes available for inclusion in this database, such as quotes taken from movies, books and TV-shows.

So I simply wrote a bash-script that takes a base signature, which in my case contains some contact information and the URL to my GnuPG public key, adds this to the output from fortune and stores it all in a simple text file. The resulting file is what I then tell my e-mail client to use for a signature.

The script looks like this:

#!/bin/bash
SIGN_DIR=/home/hayabusa/documents
rm -f $SIGN_FILE/mailsignature
cat $SIGN_DIR/basesignature > $SIGN_DIR/mailsignature
fortune >> $SIGN_DIR/mailsignature
exit 0

So as you can see, nothing fancy at all.

Then to make the signature change once every fifteen minutes I added this row to my /etc/crontab:

*/15 * * * * hayabusa /home/hayabusa/bin/mailsign_maker.sh >/dev/null

Now let's see for how long this keeps me "not bored" with my e-mail signature ;-)

Oh, and by the way, I realize I am far from the first that's done something like this. I just figured I might not be the last wanting to do it either.

One more thing

2007-03-20T23:34:00.000+01:00

Playing Wii Sports Boxing with a high fever is not anything I'll ever recommend to anyone... Don't try this at home kids. Seriously.

So tomorrow is officially "sit-on-your-ass-and-play-like-you-did-before-you-had-a-Wii"-day. I think I'll be hitting "Kid Icarus" and "Tenchu, Return to darkness" a little extra hard. If I can muster any energy at all that is.

Now, off to bed.

A hit but maybe not a very hard one?

2007-03-20T23:09:00.000+01:00

If this article speaks the truth, the competition might stiffen even more for Sony and their unfortunate PS3. A "stronger" edition of the Xbox 360 is definitely a blow aimed straight at the jaw of Sony.

However, when examined a bit closer (and I don't mind 'cuz the Xbox 360 Elite looks totally sweet, and just made me sound like a surfer retard too...) it's not that much of a PS3 killer when you think about. At least not at that price.

With the PS3 you get not only a high-end gaming console but a Blu-Ray player. Sure, there's a pretty inexpensive HD-DVD player available for the 360 but it is not included in the machine out of the box. Not even in the Elite package, and this is important.

The 360 Elite has a harddrive twice the size of the PS3 Premium but everybody knows harddrives are relatively cheap hardware while a stand-alone Blu-Ray player will set you back somewhere around €700 (about $850) over here. And if I buy an Xbox 360 Elite and the HD-DVD player for it I've already spent a bit more than what a PS3 Premium would set me back.

Personally I don't understand what they're thinking at Microsoft by not including an HD-DVD player with this Elite edition or in upcoming Premium editions. That would really stick it to the competition, and would make myself seriously consider buying a 360. It really makes me wonder, just like someone commented on the article above - do they know something we don't since they don't seem to be taking HD-DVD seriously?

Nintendo, bodyslamming the competition

2007-03-20T22:35:00.000+01:00

There really seems to be no stopping Nintendo these days. They are murdering the competition on both the handheld-market and as far as ordinary consoles go.

Microsoft is still in the race since the Xbox 360 is selling very well and let's not forget that it is a pretty sweet machine with a shitload of awesome games. But what is up with Sony? Are they even trying to compete or have they completely shot themselves in the foot, head and ass already? Sure looks like it to me. I mean, damn, even the GameBoy Advance, is outselling the PS3 in the US. Granted, there is quite a difference in price and probably very different target audiences but it's still pretty embarrassing for Sony to have their spanking new, state-of-the-art, seventh generation console be outsold by a six years old device.

It'll be really interesting to see what happens after this upcoming Friday when the PS3 is finally, however in crippled form, released in Europe. People over here have waited four months longer than in the US and Japan. Now let's see how many lost interest and bought a 360 or a Wii months ago.

In the short time that the Wii has been out it's sold an incredible 1.62 million copies in Europe and it is still almost impossible get your hands on one. There's no way the PS3 is beating that, that I am sure of. Even in the markets where the PS3 is available it is being hammered by the Wii being outsold two to one. Yay Nintendo!

And once again... Kick. Ass.

2007-03-16T13:24:00.000+01:00

Oh please, let it be so.

And I want a job at Nintendo. Now.

How embarassing for him

2007-03-16T13:19:00.000+01:00

Bill Gates apparently got his period towards the end of his interview with Bob Garfield. Poor Bill. I hope he had his tampons close by.

Have a sense of humor for fucks sake. What a baby...

There is such a thing as "too much"

2007-03-15T22:10:00.000+01:00

OK, I'm all for modding your box and I love all sorts of silly gadgets with blinkenlights deluxe but this is just plain retarded.

I will however ask my boss for one for my box at work ;-)

Kick. Ass.

2007-03-15T13:13:00.000+01:00

That's basically all I have to say on the matter.

Backwards compatibility

2007-03-14T20:47:00.000+01:00

This article puzzled me a bit. OK, so well over a year after the release of the Xbox 360 the console's developers are "reducing the focus on backwards compatibility"?

I'm sorry, but isn't the whole point with backwards compatibility that it should already be implemented at the time of launch? Isn't the idea that people that bought the previous model should be able to play their old games on the new console once they've bought one, and not fifteen months later? That's at least what I thought backwards compatibility was all about, and this is also one of the main reasons I will not be buying a 360 anytime soon.

For a good example of what backwards compatibility really should be maybe the 360 team should take a look at what the Wii does with GameCube-games - it actually PLAYS them ALL! Imagine that, and it's done so since launch. Oh yeah, and so did the Nintendo DS with all Gameboy Advance-games.

OK, I admit it... I suck...

2007-03-12T22:13:00.000+01:00

Yeah, I've been slacking off with the whole "Fighting the flab"-deal with my Wii. Things got a bit crazy when we moved at the beginning of February and I wasn't able to play my Wii or anything else at all for over a week. After that I basically got lost and strayed from the path.

Don't get me wrong, I've playing plenty of video games and a lot of Wii (of course) but my concentration has drifted to "The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess", Virtual Console-games and "Showdown: Legends of Wrestling" on the Xbox.

So I'm a little ashamed now, and I've decided to start all over again but go at it even harder this time. Starting tomorrow I'm gonna play my Wii, and "Wii Sports" in particular, for at least 45 minutes every day, 15 minutes before breakfast and at least 30 minutes in the evening after work. I'll continue this for at least an entire month.

And that's a promise!

Chris Hecker is a piece of $#&%!

2007-03-11T19:10:00.000+01:00

And by that I mean "a piece of shit".

If you didn't quite get that, read this and you'll soon find out who Chris Hecker is and what lovely things he had to say about Nintendo's latest console at GDC 2007.

Mr. Hecker's outburst is some of the most juvenile bullshit I've read in quite a while. He actually claims that because the Wii uses hardware inferior to that of the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3 Nintendo doesn't "give a shit about games as an art from". Please... Get off your high horse and shut the fuck up. How old are you? Twelve?

Since when does "more" automatically mean "better"? Is a painting or other piece of art automatically superior simply because it uses more expensive paints for example? Isn't the artistic parts something that lies within the craftsmanship itself? The game's story? How much fun people have while playing it? I'm sorry Chris, but you're a complete retard.

Nintendo has managed to produce games in the past that myself and millions of others still enjoy over twenty years later. I think they know just a little bit more about "games as an art form" than you do, you pompous little shit.

I sincerely hope Mr. Hecker, who in case you missed it works for Maxis, the studio developing "Spore" for the Wii and plenty of other games for said console, gets fired for his moronic outburst at GDC 2007. The video gaming industry simply doesn't need all these stupid fucks that are more interested in dick-measuring contests than in fun games.

Hecker has apologized for his rant but personally I think that his second rate lame ass apology doesn't quite cut it. It's too little too late and I don't think he's being sincere at all. More likely he's performing some damage control because he's been ordered to do so by his bosses.

I'm really sad to see the industry producing and nurturing people with this elitist attitude towards what is considered a good video game. It's supposed to be about having fun. Get it Chris? F-U-N, FUN!

Killer does NOT equal video gamer!

2007-03-11T17:44:00.000+01:00

OK, this article just plainly pisses me off, or not the article itself really but the quote contained in it. It's like Chris Burbank, apparently the Salt Lake City Police Chief, in his day to day work goes about assuming that all murderers are also video gamers. Like video gaming is some sort of prerequisite skill needed in order to become a murderer. And when he then stumbles upon a murder case where the crime was NOT fueled by violent video games he's all surprised. What a moron.

It's a really sad state of affairs when someone in his position makes these kinds of assumptions. Does he then perhaps also believe that Colombia has the most video gamers per capita in the world? I mean, they do have the world's highest rating of murders per capita after all. Fuckhead. Somebody should fire his narrow minded ass right now.

To mod or not to mod, that is the question

2007-03-08T00:45:00.000+01:00

The first modchips for the Nintendo Wii are now available for purchase and offers of "professional" modding have started to appear. In connection with this I had a discussion with a friend and fellow Wii-owner about wether it is a good idea to have a modchip installed this early in the game.

My friend can't wait to mod his Wii but personally I've chosen to wait, and I'll probably wait for quite a while too. Being the owner of a severely modded and highly treasured Xbox this might seem like odd behavior, but let me explain.

I firmly believe that it should be the right of every consumer to do what ever he/she likes with any piece of hardware that he/she buys. Unfortunately most hardware manufacturers, especially those making video game consoles, don't share this view of consumer rights. This is understandable in a way, since (and I'm being realistic here) the primary reasons for installing modchips is wanting to be able to run "backups of your games" (most likely pirated copies downloaded from the internet) and imported games, and this is exactly the kind of behavior that Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony want to thwart.

Since modchips are considered the enemy by the console manufacturers and the game makers they will naturally try and fight this. With both the Xbox 360 and the Wii receiving software updates
via internet connectivity they now also have a good channel for distributing their counterattack. So what's to say that Nintendo doesn't find a way to make life difficult for anyone that goes ahead and installs a modchip in their Wii by bundling software for this purpose in the next channel update for example? Sure, several of the modchips boast a "stealth mode" but do we know exactly how this "stealth mode" works or if it works at all? What's to say that Nintendo doesn't find a way to trick the "stealth mode" once they've gotten to know a little more about the modchips? Oh yes, you can be damn sure that the people at Nintendo will have ordered and dissected every kind of modchip available already and they will continue to do so with any new or updated chips that appear.

Imagine that you install a modchip and are all happy going about with your "backup games", homebrew antics and whatever else, and then one day an update locks you out of the Shopping Channel or disables some other feature in your Wii. Not fun, not fun at all, but not an unlikely scenario none the less.

So what I'm saying is that I choose to wait and let other people find out how good these modchips are. In a year or so when we know more, especially about Nintendo's attitude towards it all and how hard they will fight it, I might spend the money and get my Wii modded. The sole reason being, of course, that I wanna be able to play backups of my store-bought games ;-)

I am the hitechnoid and I'm here to rant

2007-03-05T18:10:00.000+01:00

Yeah, that's basically it.

I'm a digicrazed hitechnoid man in my early thirties and this blog is where I will vent my thoughts and rant about hardware, software and all other things binary, digital and high-technological.

My appetite for all things high-technological is insatiable and my ability to rant is endless. That is why I've started this blog and that is the only reason. I'm here to fulfill my own exhibitionistic needs, not anybody else's, but if anybody finds my babbling entertaining - all the better.

"Kid Icarus" is available for Virtual Console!

2007-02-25T16:02:00.000+01:00

Holy cow! I just gotta get my internet-access back soon! One of my favorite NES-games of all time is finally available for Virtual Console!

Since I first learned about Virtual Console I've been wishing for "Kid Icarus" to be realeased. Now it is and I can't download it because my ADSL hasn't been reconnected yet! I think I'm gonna explode right now!

Or maybe I'll just go play some "Mario Kart 64" instead.

All hail the awesome Virtual Console!

Thoughts on the original Xbox and the Xbox 360

2007-02-19T13:10:00.000+01:00

Despite my previous post I'm not anti-360 in any way. I think the Xbox 360 seems like an awesome machine with a tremendous selection of great games for it. I've tried a few and I was, and still am, really impressed. The online stuff seems cool too. That I have yet to take for a testdrive though. The fairly inexpensive HD-DVD drive for it is a nice addition too, if you're into chasing that perfectly crisp movie experience.

However, at this point in time the 360 is not for me. And the reason is pretty simple - I don't see how it is in reality much better than the original Xbox that I already own.

This has not as much to do with what the original Xbox was once it left the factory as with what a little modchip and a huge harddrive has turned it into.

My Xbox plays DVDs and other digital media (thanks to Xbox Media Center), and not just the Microsoft-approved kinds at that. It is integrated into my home network, has wireless controllers, runs homebrew applications, old-school console emulators and games from any region and thanks to the upgraded harddrive I can store all of my games on the actual machine so that I don't have to have a bunch of game discs floating about the place. None of these are thanks to the creators of the Xbox hardware though.

The rest of the great things about my Xbox I do give the people at Redmond mad props for though, and they are the original and still primary reasons for me wanting to own one ever since I saw it demonstrated at some tech show on TV years ago.

The Xbox too has an awesome array of games available for it, and being the "previous generation" console those games are since the release of the 360 available for as low as $10, sometimes even lower, if you just know where to look (eBay for example). Part of what makes these awesome games possible is the hardware, software and pinch of magic put into the machine, and that's why I really owe Microsoft a huge thanks for finally serving up a quality product after centuries of dishing out sub-standard software. I do at the same time have to flip them the bird though, for fighting the hackers that hacked and improved the machine and made it truly, really and unforgettably awesome.

The original Xbox was a mindblowing machine when it was released and it keeps blowing my mind even today. As I see it the only things the 360 has on the original black monster is better graphics and improved online play (which I don't care much for). It is far from as hacker-friendly and upgradable as its predecessor. It does however have new games coming out for it which the old Xbox doesn't (Or are the studios still developing for it? Enlighten me.), but that's not really a selling point either since there are still myriads of awesome games for the original Xbox that I haven't played.

You could sum it all up by saying that I'm not "done" with the original Xbox yet and the 360 is therefore superfluous to me and in its not-so-hacked state actually has less to offer me. One day that might change, but probably not very soon. Hell, I haven't even tended to "Tenchu, Return to darkness" properly yet!

A traitor in our midst

2007-02-16T12:27:00.000+01:00

Not that many of my friends are a whole lot into video games. It's just a select few and out of those few even fewer share my enthusiasm for the Nintendo Wii and even fewer still own one themselves. Sadly that number recently went down by one too.

One of my friends, the traitor shall remain nameless, recently sold his Wii with the explanation that he's "gonna by an Xbox 360 instead". Further, he went on claiming that there are almost no good games on the market or on the way for the Wii. Also, he claimed that all the games out there are "basically for kids". Needless to say, I let him have it in a big verbal way.

There are plenty of good games for the Wii that aren't "for kids" already in stores and, very importantly, more on the way. Just by mentioning the fact that "Manhunt 2" is coming to the Wii got my friend studdering a bit with regret (although he'd never admit this), and that's not all. "Project H.A.M.M.E.R." looks like it might be really cool for example, and there's lots more.

Agreed, Nintendo as always had a lot more "child-friendly" image and over all strategy but even if all Nintendo-games were cute and cuddly (which they aren't), far from all games for their consoles are published by Nintendo themselves. There are plenty of third-party companies developing games for the GameCube, GameBoy Advance, DS and Wii. So basically my friend's claims are bullshit.

And another thing, buying a new console is not a valid reason for selling one of the consoles you already own. Sure you can buy an Xbox 360 or a Playstation 3, but unless you're short on cash you don't have to sell your Wii, Dreamcast or whatever in order to do so. It's perfectly fine to own two, three or fourteen consoles! And since lack of funds was not given as an excuse this one doesn't hold valid in my friend's case either.

When inquired about the reasons for choosing an Xbox 360 the number of existing good games was given and the fact that he wanted to play online with another friend of ours, both perfectly valid reasons that I have no real problems with. There are a lot of good games for the 360, it's been out a year longer than the Wii so that's only natural, and I hear Xbox Live is pretty neat (I haven't tried it out myself though).

But why sell your Wii you moron?!?!?!?! I feel betrayed.

Yes, I'm a huge Wii-fanboy. Got a problem with that? Well, fuck you then.

A little exercise is better than none you moron

2007-02-14T13:12:00.000+01:00

This article really blew my mind. It almost frightens me how goddamn stupid some people are.

OK, so kids play video games. I get that some people might not think that it is the most productive way for them to spend time but hey, kids like playing video games. So shouldn't parents be happy that at least the Wii gets them off their asses and moving about at least a little bit? (You don't have to play like a madman with arms and legs flailing after all, although I find myself that it sometimes helps quite a bit *LOL* Just make sure you're at safe distance from anything that can get harmed if you hit it... (see previous post))

Things could after all be worse. Practically no other console offers and demands the amount of movement during normal game play that the Nintendo Wii does.

So parents should rejoice while the Wii makes their otherwise lazy kids sweat a little. Or at least shut the fuck up, OK?

Surprise! Only idiots get injured playing Wii

2007-02-14T12:41:00.000+01:00

This thread in the forums at SomethingAwful really put a smile on my face. Mainly because I've said the same thing myself more than once.

The fact of the matter is that the whole "Wii-damage-and-injury"-affair is retarded and exaggerated to the extreme. Nobody in their right mind plays their Wii in such a violent fashion that there is any real risk of people or property getting damaged.

And the people suing Nintendo for damages claiming that they only played the console as instructed by the accompanying users manual are full of it. Please tell me where in the documentation supplied with the Nintendo Wii it says that you should play like a total spazz? And specifically, where does it say that you should let go of the Wiimote? Or throw it as hard as you possibly can towards your TV? Morons.

You see, if you don't do any of the above things you, everyone around you and your belongings will be totally fine, I assure you.

Plus, I'm 100% sure that most of the reported damages are fake, especially those regarding broken TVs. I mean, come on, do you know how HARD you have to throw something to even make a dent in some TVs, let alone break through the glass and plant the Wiimote there (like I've seen pictures of)? It's virtually impossible. People are breaking their stuff just to be part of some retarded trend. "Dude, my playing style is so crazy I broke my TV!" Fuck you, you retarded fuck. I don't buy that bullshit at all.

It's called "innovation", not "penis measuring contest"

2007-01-27T22:07:00.000+01:00

And here's some one else that's gotten the point the Wii is trying to make (and managing very well at that).

Fighting the flab: Week one results

2007-01-27T13:55:00.000+01:00

Today's weigh-in was a bit disappointing.

I didn't expect to have lost much, just a tiny bit maybe. But no, I haven't lost an ounce! It does however take the body some time to get used to moving again and the metabolism takes some time to get going. Maybe I'll see some results next week, if not at least I'm still having fun right? ;-) And as I've already reported, my stamina is getting a lot better at least.

Also, since I got my paycheck just yesterday I haven't really started on the japanese diet yet either (although I had a little bit of japanese food this week), and I will be expecting some results from that if from nothing else.

It struck me today how damn lame it is to report every single day of Wii-playing. Not even I am that interested in how much I play ;-) So from here on I might just do weekly summaries if anything at all. But you can all be sure that I will be playing my Wii no matter what, and at least 30 minutes of "Wii Sports" every day. No cheating, I promise!

A fine day for Nintendo fanboys

2007-01-27T01:27:00.000+01:00

"Mario Kart 64" was released for the Virtual Console today! I'm ecstatic I tell you. I looove Mario Kart in all of its incarnations so I was really quick to download this one to my Nintendo Wii.

As if that wasn't enough good news Nintendo launched the much anticipated (by me at least!) News Channel today, and it's actually pretty neat. It looks good and its functionality is actually better than I expected. So thank you for another neat Wii-toy Nintendo.

Speaking of toys, I've read some rumours that my webbrowser of choice, Mozilla Firefox, may be coming to the Nintendo Wii. If there is any truth at all to that rumour I'll be beside myself with joy. My fave browser on my Wii, how awesome is that?!

And for my workout today I opted for nothing but Boxing once again.

Here's todays Wii-activities:

Wii Shop Channel 00:10
News Channel 00:15
Mario Kart 64 00:26
Wii Sports 00:46

Total Play Time 01:37

Fighting the flab: Day six

2007-01-25T21:24:00.000+01:00

Wii Sports 00:35
Super Mario 64 00:31
Gunstar Heroes 00:05

Total Play Time 01:11

Fighting the flab: Day five (feel the buuuurn!!!)

2007-01-24T19:23:00.000+01:00

The unusual amount of movement during the past few days is definitely taking its toll on my body.

Last night I was so sore in my right shoulder that I had problems getting to sleep. I actually had to get up and rub the muscles until they were blue before the pain subsides significantly enough for me to be able to sleep. I've still been really sore all day at work.

But nobody likes a quitter so...

Wii Sports 01:15

Total Play Time 01:15

My longest workout yet! Boo-yah! And get this, it was all Boxing too!

The odd thing is though, that I'm not by far as tired today as I was after my workout just two days ago. So apparently, my fitness level is improving already! Weighing in on saturday is gonna be really interesting indeed.

Fighting the flab: Day four

2007-01-23T21:06:00.000+01:00

First thing I did tonight was hook myself up with three new Virtual Console games; "R-Type", "Super Mario 64" and "Gunstar Heroes". Then I begun my workout, and here's how it went:

Wii Shop Channel 00:11
R-TYPE 00:04
Wii Sports 00:50

Total Play Time 01:05

Naturally I don't really count the fifteen minutes of shopping and goofing off with "R-Type" as part of my workout. Mainly Boxing today otherwise, and a short game of Tennis as well.