Read the 1UP Review!
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It looks really cool, in that Crackdown kinda way.
Memorial Day Weekend
They boy and I met the Lady at her parents' house in Kingston, IL last Friday night for Memorial Day weekend. She had flown up the Wednesday before to get some time to hang with her girlfriends and sister. As I discussed in the last post, they live in a rather remote area, but as usual, it was fun.
Part of the fun was I finally broke down and bought an iPod, as I mentioned previously. I've had some time to really get to know it, and so far, I really like it, but I have some serious reservations about iTunes. Here's a quick love/hate breakdown for ya:
I LOVE:
- the sorting functions; it sorts music in all sorts of helpful and interesting ways
- the slickness; it looks purty while it's doing it's thing
- the way it handles podcasts; I used to waste a lotta time manually managing my podcasts; it's nice being able to just set rules for each podcast in iTunes and just let the thing function the way I told it to once
- I'm actually starting to come around on the way iTunes handles playlists; I hated it for a while since it's different from Winamp, but I've started to kinda dig it these last few days
- sound quality; the sound quality is stunning
I HATE:
- the interface; I know Apple is allergic to buttons, but add at least a couple; context-sensitivity is cool and all, but that one button is responsible for too much; the scroll wheel is cool, at times, for song selection and volume, but it's a little twitchy when it comes to setting ratings for songs
- the initial loading of the library; it should just look at my music directory and go 'okay, here's your songs;' it doesn't; I don't care what fucking encoding a song is in, just play it; I accidentally ripped 2200 songs in .wma (forgot that WMP rips in .wma format by default) when I re-ripped my CD collection; a music player should just play them; instead, it spent 7-8 hours converting them to .aac, in a furthering of the Apple/M$ pissing contest; it then duplicated half the songs, so I had to wipe out the whole library and try again; I didn't properly sync the fucking thing until I'd had it for a day and a half; this was the worst part of the experience
- too susceptible to fingerprints (very minor complaint)
- doesn't play HD Quicktime (small Quicktime looks like shit)
-it doesn't save my place in a podcast; since my podcasting device was separate from my music before this, I used to flip to music occasionally and come back to the podcast later in the day. Now, I can't do that. If I flip to music, it starts the podcast over. I'm starting to see why all you iPod-loving fucks would bitch when we recorded podcasts that were actually a good length. WE weren't the problem, that piece of shit device on which made yourself dependent was the problem! Yes, it does. Oops.
Overall, the iPod and I have formed a decent relationship. We're like those grudging cop buddies in an action flick.
The Lady and I took in a double feature yesterday of Terminator: Salvation and Star Trek. I'd already seen Star Trek, but she hadn't. Wii Apologist John also joined us for Terminator.
Terminator: Salvation was better than I was expecting. Given that it was directed the amazingly hyper-cutting McG who is responsible for such abominations as Charlie's Angels and Fastlane, and the giant dumps AICN had been taking on it, I was almost sad about the movie before even seeing it. Then, when it ended up being a really fun action flick, I was okay. It continues the story of the Terminator films, has great action, and that's what I needed outta this movie. If you see it, I'm curious about something. Did you think it was John Connor's movie, or Marcus Wright's?
Star Trek was actually a lot better for me the second time, since I wasn't wasted this time. This time around, I really felt like captured more of the spirit of what Star Trek is. I do have a hell of a bone to pick with the writers and producers, though. This is NOT an alternate time line. It is the new timeline, and they've obliterated everything that happened in Star Trek, Star Trek: the Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Star Trek: Voyager. It's not an alternate timeline because Nero went back and changed events. He didn't create a second reality, he just changed the existing one. Therefore, according to this film, nothing after Star Trek: Enterprise counts. That's sorta fucked up. I don't know how I feel about that.
Anyway, it was a fun weekend, which we concluded with my sister's birthday.
Oh, perhaps you saw this?
It looks really cool, in that Crackdown kinda way.
Memorial Day Weekend
They boy and I met the Lady at her parents' house in Kingston, IL last Friday night for Memorial Day weekend. She had flown up the Wednesday before to get some time to hang with her girlfriends and sister. As I discussed in the last post, they live in a rather remote area, but as usual, it was fun.
Part of the fun was I finally broke down and bought an iPod, as I mentioned previously. I've had some time to really get to know it, and so far, I really like it, but I have some serious reservations about iTunes. Here's a quick love/hate breakdown for ya:
I LOVE:
- the sorting functions; it sorts music in all sorts of helpful and interesting ways
- the slickness; it looks purty while it's doing it's thing
- the way it handles podcasts; I used to waste a lotta time manually managing my podcasts; it's nice being able to just set rules for each podcast in iTunes and just let the thing function the way I told it to once
- I'm actually starting to come around on the way iTunes handles playlists; I hated it for a while since it's different from Winamp, but I've started to kinda dig it these last few days
- sound quality; the sound quality is stunning
I HATE:
- the interface; I know Apple is allergic to buttons, but add at least a couple; context-sensitivity is cool and all, but that one button is responsible for too much; the scroll wheel is cool, at times, for song selection and volume, but it's a little twitchy when it comes to setting ratings for songs
- the initial loading of the library; it should just look at my music directory and go 'okay, here's your songs;' it doesn't; I don't care what fucking encoding a song is in, just play it; I accidentally ripped 2200 songs in .wma (forgot that WMP rips in .wma format by default) when I re-ripped my CD collection; a music player should just play them; instead, it spent 7-8 hours converting them to .aac, in a furthering of the Apple/M$ pissing contest; it then duplicated half the songs, so I had to wipe out the whole library and try again; I didn't properly sync the fucking thing until I'd had it for a day and a half; this was the worst part of the experience
- too susceptible to fingerprints (very minor complaint)
- doesn't play HD Quicktime (small Quicktime looks like shit)
-
Overall, the iPod and I have formed a decent relationship. We're like those grudging cop buddies in an action flick.
The Lady and I took in a double feature yesterday of Terminator: Salvation and Star Trek. I'd already seen Star Trek, but she hadn't. Wii Apologist John also joined us for Terminator.
Terminator: Salvation was better than I was expecting. Given that it was directed the amazingly hyper-cutting McG who is responsible for such abominations as Charlie's Angels and Fastlane, and the giant dumps AICN had been taking on it, I was almost sad about the movie before even seeing it. Then, when it ended up being a really fun action flick, I was okay. It continues the story of the Terminator films, has great action, and that's what I needed outta this movie. If you see it, I'm curious about something. Did you think it was John Connor's movie, or Marcus Wright's?
Star Trek was actually a lot better for me the second time, since I wasn't wasted this time. This time around, I really felt like captured more of the spirit of what Star Trek is. I do have a hell of a bone to pick with the writers and producers, though. This is NOT an alternate time line. It is the new timeline, and they've obliterated everything that happened in Star Trek, Star Trek: the Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Star Trek: Voyager. It's not an alternate timeline because Nero went back and changed events. He didn't create a second reality, he just changed the existing one. Therefore, according to this film, nothing after Star Trek: Enterprise counts. That's sorta fucked up. I don't know how I feel about that.
Anyway, it was a fun weekend, which we concluded with my sister's birthday.
Oh, perhaps you saw this?
">
I am more excited about that game than you can imagine. How about you?
Before that, though, what are your big summer entertainment items? I'm stoked about Drag Me to Hell next week, NCAA Football 10, Madden NFL 10, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and Watchmen on BD. What about you?
-Blaine
I am more excited about that game than you can imagine. How about you?
Before that, though, what are your big summer entertainment items? I'm stoked about Drag Me to Hell next week, NCAA Football 10, Madden NFL 10, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and Watchmen on BD. What about you?
-Blaine
