Breaking Windows

Yes, a new year! Oh man, the possibilities, or something.

2006 was a great year for gaming. We will soon have our GOTY Nominees and GOTY 2006 posts up at BC Gaming.

Did the Wii win the console war? I don't know, but I am pretty sure it won the 2006 holiday season. The Wii had a much stronger launch than the GameCube - which really had a pathetic showing for Day One.

The Wii had better software at launch than the PS3, by a land slide. The Wii also had a better launch than the Xbox 360, with almost double the exclusive games.

Here is to a prosperous New Year!

MapWii.com is a Google Maps powered site, and is even optimized for the Wii browser.

It also allows you to easily send a request to other people - something that Nintendo didn't feel like building into their operating system -- thanks Nintendo!

No, I'm not bitter or anything. Seriously, Nintendo needs to figure out what it wants to do online, because this Friend Code system, and the evil per-game Friend Code system is absolute horse manure.

And so our first post of 2007, beyond the Happy New Year post, is about the Nintendo Wii. Go Nintendo!

I had no idea you could do this. But thanks to Andy, now I have everything arranged quite nicely. All my VC games are on the second screen, arranged by platform.

If you A+B grab a channel, you can move it. Happy arranging!

Sony has put up what it calls a "limited-edition" strategy guide for LocoRoco. So maybe you should download them quick. Each level has a PDF with all the secrets for all the hidden MuiMui, Pickories, and secret areas.

If VHI had such a TV show, my story would be featured.

Before Christmas my one-year-old (maybe) Dell Inspiron 700m died. I have to call tech. support about that.

I drove home on Christmas Eve, and as I am pulling into my grandmother's driveway, one of the warning lights turned on in my car.

To make a long story short, I had to throw a lot of money away to get my car back on the road to drive home to find a new car.

I ended up spending a lot of time with the family (a good thing) when I had a lot of freelance work to do back in BG (not a good thing).

Today I got a new car, it is a 2007 Scion tC, Flint Mica in color. So why was this The Worst Christmas Ever?

Because I didn't want to spend all that money on a car. Am I happy I got a new car? Well hell yea I am!

But those are the breaks. A car dependable car is rather important. I will post pictures when I get it.

Now I just need to get my Dell laptop fixed, and I will be in good shape.

The panorama moonroof has the same standard welding as a car with with a solid roof. The design exceeds federal roll-over requirements.

The rear seats recline from 25 to 45 degrees back. With headrests removed, both front seats recline to be even with the rear seats, creating a "social space." The rear seats also fold forward, flat with the cargo area.

The tC utilizes Toyota's first ever driver's knee airbag.

The tC braking system is virtually identical to that of the Celica GT-S.

The tC has more sound deadening material than anything built by Toyota that's not a Lexus.

Turn the key once in the drivers side door to unlock only that door, twice within three seconds will open all doors simultaneously.

The driver's seat has seat position memory for when you load rear passengers or cargo.

The headlights automatically turn off when the car is turned off and drivers side door is opened, and will automatically turn back on when the car is started. Oddly, this is only true for the driver's side door.

You have access to open/close the power windows after the car is turned off, but only if you DON'T open any doors.

I bought my Dell June 24, 2005. I thought I got the three year warrantee for it. Turns out I only had a one year warrantee. Of course.

Both a friend and the tech. I talked to at Dell think the motherboard is fried. Since this is an out of warrantee repair, Dell charges a flat rate of $199. This covers shipping to and from, and fixes of everything (even the keyboard) but the LCD and the motherboard.

The Install of YDL 5 on my PS3 went smooth as silk.

I backed up my HDD data with the backup utility (thanks Sony!), partitioned 10 GB for YDL, installed the bootloader (thanks Sony!) then rebooted to go through a pain-free install of YDL 5.

I then rebooted into the GameOS, which you do at the kboot screen, and restored my GameOS data to its original form.

Not one problem to report. All my downloaded games and demos work, very nice process all around.

In all, I would say the install of YDL 5 took a little over an hour. Backup and Restore took a half hr. each, for a paltry 11 GB of data!

More to come from my full write up for Blogcritics but I wanted to put something down on paper.

GripShift is now available on the PS Store. It is another $9.99 game for the PS3's "Arcade."

Priced to move (fast) this is well worth your $10. It has a ton of single-player modes, plus full online multiplayer. The game is just a lot of fun, be in in challenge mode or race mode.

And at this price, it is even better than the PSP version. Chalk this up as another solid title for Sony's download service.

Please take special consideration of the before and after shots. Hit the jump to see my new car, a 2007 Scion tC. It was raining pretty good when I got it home, so sorry for the crap quality. When we get sun or better weather (this is Bowling Green, so likely better weather) I will take some nice shots of my new ride.

Before

Click!

I would like to turn comments back on more than anyone. But until I find a way to stave off the spambots that kill my comments cgi (even with TypeKey turned on) comments are just not in the cards.

But here is an interesting bit of metrics for you: Unique eye balls per day have not fallen by the wayside since I turned comments off.

There are a couple good reasons to live in this part of the state. Well, OK, I can only think of one: It takes less than an hour to drive Detroit or Cleveland.

This Saturday, the 13th, and Feb. 24th are two of the biggest auto shows held in the U.S. Yes, they are the Detroit and Cleveland North American International Auto Shows.

And I am going to both. I will be going with fellow Scion owners from across the state. I can't wait to go, I have never been to the Cleveland NAIAS, and I know full well how much fun the Detroit NAIAS is.

You can expect literally hundreds of photos. Now, if I was smart, I would have tried to get a press pass for Detroit through Blogcritics. That way I could have gotten much better pictures (it is going to be jam packed Saturday) and would have been able to write a news piece for BC Magazine. Oh well.

The Wheres George stuff just does not stop (previous entry one, two). I got this in email:

GOOD MORNING OR EVENING WHAT EVER THE CASE MAY BE. MY NAME IS EUGENE SMITH WHAT SHOULD I DO WITH THIS DOLLAR BILL MAIL IT TO YOU OR WHAT? MY EMAIL ADDRESS IS [SNIP] i will AWAIT YOUR REPLY. THANK YOU

Matt Clark made this video. He did a great job!

It's a ridiculous rant with tons of great comments, oddly similar to the just as awful on Bill O'Reily made a few weeks back.

Finally.

We may have had one or two days with light flurries, but not once have I seen ground cover yet this winter.

Tonight it snowed! This has been the first real snow. You know what this means? February, March, and possibly even April are going to be a bitch.

I say that Northern Ohio is in for a heavy winter this year.

Here is another clueless network affiliate out for ratings and attention. And its not even sweeps week! WFAA has an article on porn on the Wii and PS3 web browsers. Don't miss the video either!

There is one very good point in this piece, it is buried, and should be the lede of this piece. This could have even been turned into hard news, had the reporter gotten ahold of Nintendo.

I talked about MapWii.com earlier. Since I signed up, I actually got a request through the site. Now, please sit down before you read the rest of this, as it might be a little hard to take.

The radio station's contest, "Hold Your Wee for a Wii" was the cause of the death. Local ABC affiliate News10 has the story.

Details are sketchy at best right now. The coroner's report is not final, that will take months. But the "preliminary autopsy findings concluded a Rancho Cordova woman who competed in a radio station water-drinking contest before she was found dead Friday showed signs consistant with water intoxication, Sacramento County Coroner's Office authorities said Saturday."

This year it was more than Matt and myself writing our Game of the Year article. Myself included, 15 Blogcritics helped out. Thanks to their efforts, this has been the best GOTY article yet for BC.

Hopefully next year it will be even more organized. Click over to read it!

The "Morning Rave" radio show -- which sponsored a water-drinking contest that preceded Friday's death of a Rancho Cordova mother of three -- will be taken off the air indefinitely, according to executives at The End (KDND, 107.9 FM).

Jennifer Lea Strange, 28, drank nearly two gallons of water -- 224 ounces -- at the radio station over three hours, according to a contestant who drank one fewer bottle of water.

I blogged about this earlier, but this is a much more in-depth story, with more information on the subject. You will likely need BugMeNot to login to SacBee.com (and read the second page of the article).

UPDATE: Radio station fires 10 in wake of contestant's death

1UP has a pretty funny look at the top 10 WTF moments of 2006. The Wii takes the number one spot.

While this one isn't as funny as the first, it still gets a chuckle. If you didn't see the first video, then you should watch this one first. Not really safe for work, but nothing that bad either.

Sure, the iPod has had Brick, Music Quiz, Parachute, and Solitaire for a while now, but last September brought even better ways to put off work - if you own a fifth generation iPod.

I just bought a black 5G iPod, and of course the first thing I did was download games from the iTunes Music Store. They are all $4.99, and some offer a great deal of game for that small price.

Sadly, there have been no additions beyond the initial eleven. I hope more games get released soon.

Still, the initial launch was strong, and I intend to write reviews of the games.

The BG News has a blog! They are only five years late! Yay!

I have been pushing The News to get blogging for years now. They are finally testing the waters. I hope that I am not the only one who contributes. So far, five staffers have access to the blog, other than me. Only time will tell.

It is powered by Word Press, which is something I like, even though I am much more at home in Movable Type. But hey, it wasn't in charge of which blog platform the College Publisher network uses.

The other new feature we (and by we, of course I mean I) added to the site is a co-branded video site featuring video from the AP.

Hit up The BG News' site and scroll past the navigation. You will see a rotating Flash clip with the top videos.

At first the site didn't work on a Mac, then it crapped out in Safari. I was not happy. I am quite happy the site now works on a Mac, and in Safari too. Check it out, because we make money off of it (and by we, I do not mean myself - sadly).

What a well written, insightful piece on local sales of the Playstation 3. The author has a keen sense of the English language too. Sure wish I could be him...

If this does happen (by the end of the year?), what would this do to the Cablesystem's service?

I will save the embarrassing photographic evidence, but my brother has a problem with the Christmas gift I gave him - his wife is now addicted to Guitar Hero II.

Last week he send me an email; "Here’s what Meaghan was doing last night instead of grading papers. She wants to be a plastic guitar legend!"

And now we have another convert.

Matthew T. Sussman, esteemed Sports Editor at BC Magazine, and once fellow newsy at The BG News, has one of the best avatars I have ever seen. Although it is not "best" because of what it is; I mean, lets face it, who wants to see a noose around your college's mascot - but it is the truth.

At one point in time, he had a brown bag over its head too, which was also quite fitting, as we got pummeled by Kent State 38-3 back on Sept. 23.

One of the all time fan favorite pro wrestlers was found dead on Friday. Glen Boyd has a superb writeup over on Blogcritics on what he'll be remembered for.

Probably don't need to say more than the title. But, to get in a long awaited Weird Al reference...

STUPID! You're so stupid!

DJ 1: "Can't you get water poisoning, and like... die."

Check it out, only 30 seconds into the clip. Then of course this is this wonderful sound bite:

DJ 1: "Maybe we should have researched this before."

DJ 2: If it gets dangerous for somebody, their body will automatically throw it up. And if you throw up the water, you are automatically out of the contest.

But this takes the cake at 1:00 into the recording:

Caller: "I want to say that, um, that those people that are drinking all that water can get sick and possibly die of water intoxication."
DJ 1: "Yeah, we're aware of that."
DJ 2: "They signed releases, so we're not responsible. It's OK."

YouTube after the break. I have to wonder when/if they pull this though.

Once the jury hears this recording, I don't see how they won't convict.

Since when is the gaming industry early? The Wii News Channel was suposed to make its debut this Saturday. How do I know this? I read it in the News Channel on my Wii. No time traveling needed.

Oh and since you want my opinion, the News Channel is wonderful. The 3-D globe thing is pretty neat if you want to zoom into a region. There are a lot of articles to read, and some have images, which can be zoomed to full screen.

The text zoom feature is a cool effect. When you zoom in/out, the words to the article move into place on the line above or below. Nice eye candy for something as boring as news.

I see myself checking the News Channel a lot.

I have seen many PC ads using Mac laptops before. Sometimes it is a mistake. Sometimes someone did it on purpose.

But this one is too good not to post.

Sony using a PGR3 render to advertise GT: HD? That has got to be one of the boneheaded moves I have seen in recent history.

But this is par for the course, I mean Sony has been making a lot of bad decisions surrounding the PS3.

Image Credit: Oobgarm at Digital Press

My friend was telling me about this. It is software that will load PS2 games from the PS2 HDD or a connected USB HDD. No mod chip required, it says.

So a Chipotle opened up within walking distance to my apartment. It has been there for a few months now. I decided to try it out.

This place is a Qdoba, which we have downtown. The rice is the same, the meat is the same, the beans are the same, hell, the different salsas are the same. What gives?

I mean how can a burrito from two different places taste exactly the same, even if they are chains?

I checked Wikipedia about this. They are both Denver, Colorado based chains - even more similarities! The Wikipedia entry listed this article that compares the two.

We ran a story about this back when Chipotle opened in The BG News.

Thanks but I will go to Qdoba. Faculty/Staff/Students at BGSU get a free drink.

Image Credit: Brandon Heiss/ The BG News

This is the official set of "Matt P. needs a new TV since his is a broken POS so bid high on these auctions of incredibly crappy games." I mean, you wouldn't want me to be without a TV and likewise be unable to provide you with incredibly high quality reviews, now would you? See, bidding on these auctions and paying me money helps you, see?

My roommate and I are addicted to A&E's Intervention. We're the type of sickos who find it a little funny. Sure, sometimes it's heartbreaking, like when a young girl prostitutes herself to buy heroin or some mother's eating disorder is beginning to be mimicked by her infant daughter. These are serious, socially recognized addictions, handled in a stark and very sincere way.

So I couldn't stop laughing when they featured a kid addicted to video games.

I always knew there was a connection between them, but now my Wii can be a giant monster thanks to Pipeworks software. Mecha Gigan FTW!

I have no idea when the game comes out, so don't ask.