I made it to around the 45 minute mark before turning it off. I was hoping it would be entertaining how bad it was. But its so bad I couldn't enjoy the bad-ness of it. Whew. What a stinker.
Bobby's Crabcakes
Earlier this week, as Megen and I were running around town visiting Kinko's and printers for our invitations, we stopped by Bobby's Crabcakes, in Rockville Town Center. Megen had read about them in her latest Washingtonian Magazine.
Not cheap (though cheaper than Phillips!), the crabcake sandwiches we had were fantastic. It was close to the best crabcake sandwich I ever had. The meat was succulent and rich with very little filling - just enough to hold all the huge chunks of crabmeat together.
Crazy good crabcakes. Highly recommended.
Netflix, Microsoft To Partner For Xbox 360 Video Delivery?
Dear Netflix/Microsoft,
Please sign a partnership and let me stream movies from Netflix onto my Xbox 360. Just make a new blade called Netflix.
Sincerely,
Me
Gamasutra - Pachter: Netflix, Microsoft To Partner For Xbox 360 Video Delivery?
So true funny how it seems
I'm digging the new MacBook Pro. It runs super fast, I've experience no crashes or bugs so far...though I'm only doing music, browsing and writing on it. NeoOffice is ok. I'd like to find a better word processor. I'm tempted to switch over to Vista and use Office. I tried out Mac Office at the Apple store. It was a bit too different.
I need to set aside some time this weekend and copy over my music and pictures.
I did install the Iphone SDK and Apple developer tools, Xcode, but haven't messed around much with it.
Garageband is fantastic - every kid growing up should have this, every school should be using it for music education.
I pre-ordered new Coldplay album from Itunes. On the MacBook Pro. Here is the new Itunes commercial for your viewing pleasure.
Severing the Long Tail
GameLife's write up of Microsoft's decision to phase out old/unpopular games is good. I'm just disappointed that their decision, especially with how great the Xbox Originals on Xbox Live is -- giving original Xbox games a new life, a new audience, and even giving anyone who is in the mood to play them but no longer has the disks an opportunity to download them to play anytime.
Microsoft says: We don't want your money.
According to Next Gen, Microsoft is planning on removing any Xbox Live Arcade titles that aren't selling well or that don't do well with metracritic ratings. This makes me sad.
The whole point of digital distribution is that the inventory is unlimited. If someone wants to buy GAME X, why prevent them from doing so? Why does GAME X need to be selling consistently for me to decide I want to buy it 5, 10 or 20 years from now? If I want to give you money to buy a low metacritic rated game, why wouldn't you want it? Ratings are subjective anyway, maybe I like games that everybody else thinks are crap. You don't want my money? Are you kidding? Amazon, Netflix and Itunes make tons of money off slow selling or old titles.
The best way to get developers to make better games? Implement user ratings. That would give developers a bigger incentive to make quality titles, and it would increase sales of the really good games - the ones without the huge marketing budgets, the ones relying on word of mouth. Word of mouth ratings have vastly more credibility than metacritic ratings.
In short: I trust the ratings of my friends more than any aggregate ratings database.
If I log onto Xbox Live and I see people on my friends list playing GAME X night after night, I'm going to think its a good game, regardless of what metacritic tells me. If I could see how other gamers have rated a game, I'll trust that way more than any publication or ratings aggregate. I read user reviews all the time for products I'm shopping for -- in fact, many sites like Amazon, allow users to rate the user reviews, too, so you can sort for the best, most useful user reviews.
Will this make games on Xbox Live Arcade better? The thing is -- better, high quality, more fun
-- these are all subjective. What's good to one person is going to suck to someone else. Whether this makes the titles better is going to depend on who you ask.
Volume is what I want. Why would I go to Xbox Live Arcade to play games if I know they are going to limit their stock? Instead, Microsoft should be pushing Xbox Live Arcade as the one stop destination for any game you could conceivably want to play, especially considering all the competing distribution platforms like Playstation Network, Steam, or pretty much any website out there.
The day Amazon decides to seriously go full on into digital distribution of software is the day you'll never find a box with a disk in it at a store again :)
Typing address labels
Best address name I've typed today:
dr. carrie and mr. aaron elersich
Had to consult Emily Post's Wedding Etiquette, Fifth Edition, to figure that one out under "married woman doctor." (We kept the names lowercase to match the rest of the invitation.)
Oh, and before you get the wrong impression, we consider Post more guidelines than actual rules. (what folks at work would call a "sliding scale.")
MacBook Pro saves the day!!!
Last night, I picked up an external hard drive from a contractor we're working with, faster to get it off a drive than FTP. This morning, when I plugged it in, my computer couldn't find the drive, even though I could hear it fire up and start spinning.
I bet its because our contractor only uses Mac's, so the drive was formatted only for Mac. I went home and plugged it into my Macbook and boom - there it is. So now I'm copying the files off the drive onto my Macbook, then onto my new fancy 8 GB flash drive (that I KNOW both PC and Mac can read), then onto my computer, onto the network, yada yada yada...
I suspect there is probably a way for me to read a mac formatted drive on a windows PC, but it was just easier to do this.
Before I left this morning, I considered taking my Macbook to work, to play the Penny Arcade game, while I waited for files to copy, but decided I didn't want to bother lugging it around.
Anyhoo, score one for the Macbook.
Dinner last night - Gaffney's
We had dinner last night in Bethesda at Gaffney's. I was in Bethesda meeting with a contractor, so Megen was meeting me. Chip, the contractor I was meeting up with, suggested Gaffney's. Its a small restaurant, mostly a bar with booths, however, they have a patio area outside in the back, so we sat there to enjoy the weather.
I got meatball sliders -- which were awesome -- and a caesar salad. Megen got the chicken tortilla salad, also very good. We ordered a side of saffron risotto - also good. It was a great meal and we're definitely going back. All the sandwiches sounded really good, and there were a couple Louisiana dishes including Shrimp Étouffée (one of my personal favorite dishes) I want to try.
Do I hear $4 a gallon?
According to the Consumer Reports car blog, since January, average gas prices went from $3.05 to $3.79 for this coming holiday weekend! Amazing how fast the price is rising. Only a year ago, the average price was only $3.21. Yowza.
The upside for me, really, is that the more expensive gas gets, the faster I recoup the extra money I shelled out for the Hybrid. At least the high cost of gas gives car companies greater incentive to innovate on alternative fuel technologies, and give car buyers a financial reason to buy them. I do feel bad for owners who shelled out major bucks to buy "hybrid" sport utility vehicles only to get a whopping 20-25 MPG (good for SUV but miserable in general for any car).
My New Toy: MacBook Pro
First, the specs - Macbook Pro, 15" widescreen - 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2 GB of RAM (I'm planning on upgrading to 4 GB later), 250 GB hard drive, Superdrive 8X dvd/cd. I'm also running Microsoft Vista using VMWare. Vista runs pretty well. I was able to run Oblivion. Will be spending most of the week copying over gigs of music and photos.
I've messed around a bit with iPhoto and IMovie, pretty slick. Garageband looks pretty cool, too. Messed around with Spaces a bit.
The Golden Compass
I enjoyed Phillip Pullman's Dark Materials books -- The Golden Compass, Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass. When I heard Chris Weitz -- American Pie, About a Boy -- was directing the movie, I looked forward to seeing it.
Unfortunately, the movie was a bit of a mess. I did enjoy the art direction and special effects very much. But...
I had the same problem with the Golden Compass movie that I do with some of the Harry Potter movies. I felt they made the decision that it would be more important to be faithful to the book than to make a good movie. Now to be honest, it took me two tries to get through the first book because it starts out so slowly, so by trying to stick as close to the book as possible, the movie also takes a while to get going. I also felt like rather than telling an interesting story, doing any character or world development - the movie rushed to hit all the important story points, character introductions and scenes from the book.
Would anyone who didn't read the books understand what was going on? The movie is top heavy with "lore" exposition, especially in the first hour of the movie. And the characters seem to just show up from nowhere with no decent character development.
Additionally, the movie ends earlier than the first book, just as the overall "real" story is about the begin in the series, which was just nuts. The last chapters of the first book are where the series really starts to sing and you don't put it in the movie? Crazy. The second and third books flew by for me, they were so good. I am sad that its unlikely they will make it into movie form -- though, that's probably a good thing since the main theme of the story is all about the Catholic church (and not in a good way).
It wasn't all bad -- I loved the airships and armored polar bear. I asked the other day at work -- if you had a choice, would you ride a pirate airship or the Millenium Falcon? Tough choice for me. Tough choice.
Charlie Wilson's War
We watched Charlie Wilson's War last night. I have decided that I will watch any movie with Phillip Seymour Hoffman - that guy is always fantastic. I found this movie interesting as it intersects nicely with this great book I read last year by Steve Coll -- Ghost Wars : The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001.
Bill O'Reilly tirade dance mix
Careful, it's catchy - you'll have it stuck in your head for the rest of the day.
Evidently, its about appeasement...and screaming...and yelling...
I have no idea who Kevin James is, but man, he gets bitch slapped. Ouch. I can't believe Chris Matthews gives James so much air time to hang himself. I wish most talking heads on TV were called out like this.
I am a fan of Mark Green, who I think is a great consumer advocate.
Tonight.
Meg and I are trying a new place tonight for dinner - Rock Creek. Looks interesting. I'm looking forward to a dining experience that features "food that is as kind to your palate as it is to your body."
A dining experience at Rock Creek changes your perception of healthful eating simply by introducing you to delicious meals with nutritionally balanced ingredients. Rock Creek raises your culinary conscience by proving that a well-balanced meal does not have to be tasteless. The culinary result is a menu of fulfilling lunches and dinners for approximately 600 calories.
Metro
I've got stuff for work to do outside the office this month, so I've been commuting into Bethesda for the past couple of mornings. Ironic since the company I work for is called Bethesda, but we're located in Rockville. I'm basically spending half days in downtown Bethesda - rather than drive, I've been taking the metro in. Due to rush hour, driving into Bethesda in the morning can take me up to an hour - whereas I'm only 15 minutes from the metro, and another 15 minute ride to Bethesda.
I used to take the metro when I worked in DC several years ago. I miss all the reading I used to get in. I wish I had a DS/PSP back then, though, hehe.
So many great places for lunch in downtown Bethesda...too bad I don't have time to eat while I'm there.
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