Spring Has Sprung Snitches!

Apple and oranges.

Among console manufactures, Nintendo has charted a fairly Apple-esque course. While Sony seems to be trying its hardest with the new PSP to emulate the Playstation experience in hand-held form, Nintendo has abandoned the hardware arms race in favor of promoting novel user experiences -- to great success. Although the Nintendo DS was initially knocked for its seemingly bizarre clamshell two-screen design, it is now close to eclipsing the PlayStation 2 as the greatest selling console of all-time.

The same cycle seems to be repeating again with the Nintendo 3DS. Tech demos of untranslatable user experience hits the web, fan-boys gripe, Nintendo still makes a mint. It reminds me of the initial unveiling of the iPad: it was rather underwhelming simply watching Steve Jobs sitting in his chair casually surfing the web on his new iPad. Likewise, it is impossible to gauge the effectiveness of the 3D effect without actually playing a unit for oneself. Much like the iPad, I think the Nintendo 3DS will become a handheld juggernaut once units start circulating in public.

Or maybe not.

Two elements of the Nintendo 3DS strike me as distinctly un-Apple. First - and this, in my mind, is a huge dealbreaker - is battery life. The handheld gaming market is just that: handheld. A 3 hour battery life seems debilitating, particularly as it diminishes with extended use. In contrast, the iPad is essentially one gigantic battery. Battery life may not by itself sell units, but it certainly improves user satisfaction. There is something almost magical about leaving an iPad untouched for a week or two and still finding that it has a 95% charge. The 3DS won't even survive the first leg of your cross-continental flight.

The second element is price. As wonderful a leap forward as the technology may be, I find it hard to justify paying twice as much for the 3DS as I did for the DS Lite.

Well, at least until Zelda and Star Fox come out in the summer.

Three things I like about iPad 2

I could probably add a big tag to this entire post: Written on my iPad. But I won't. (Because that's terribly pretentious.)

I really like the thing. I didn't have any of that letdown/buyer's remorse you might expect when you buy something that's rather expensive that you'd been waiting on for months.

Here are the things I love about my new iPad:

1) I can write stories anywhere and, as long as I'm connected to my network, they'll automatically update my dropbox. (Thanks PlainText.)

2) Twitter, and Safari to a lesser extent, are amazingly seamless. Touch a tweet and you can immediately see the photo, video or web page referenced. 

3) I can download library books from anywhere. The associated reader software, OverDrive Media Console, isn't great, but it's still amazing to think that I can reap the benefits of my property taxes from anywhere with an Internet connection.

A list of calculations in days

10,797 — Days since birth
8,722 — Days since Rachel’s birth
8,582 — Approximate days since beginning Kindergarten
5,306 — Approximate days since beginning High School
3,925 — Approximate days since High School graduation
2,496 — Approximate days since University graduation
2,167 — Approximate days I’ve been a Mac owner
1,660 — Days since I withdrew from the University of Utah Creative Writing MFA program
1,557 — Days since my wedding
758 — Days I’ve been an iPhone owner
607 — Days I’ve been a homeowner
269 — Days until my 5th anniversary
143 — Days until my trip to Ireland
30 — Days until my trip to Portland
7 — Days until the next Halo map pack
3 — Days until I buy an iPad 2

Part 2

Chat with M: 10/11/08

m: hey
im really sorry for the drunk dial :-\
me: hey
m: poor form
me: :)
it's okay
thanks for saying so
m: hows ny?
me: i didn't know if i should call you to see if everything was okay
ny is goodish
i'm on a trip up state, went to an amazing museum today
m: oooh yeah i some photos on the fb
looks super cool
where abouts?
me: poughkeepsie
m: rad :-)
me: you good?
m: yup
[t]'s having a party tonight for school people, im super excited to meet them
football practice tomorrow :-) its sooo nice out
me: nice
yeah, this is my fave weather ever
m: was it nice to see your mama?
me: still with her and yeah, def
m: oh good :-)
me: need to go help carry stuff in, i'll catch you late.
have fun tonight
m: okay, good talking to you and sorry again
me: no worries

Journal entry: 10/13/08

"I watched your face die backward little baby in my memory."

Email from M: 11/1/08

my apologies for the call last night. while i maintain my claim that it was not a drunk dial, it was definitely a tipsy dial.

that being said, i have been thinking about you a lot... it felt weird to be in nyc and not with you, and it feels weird to know that you have sad family stuff going on and i can't be there for you. it's fine if you don't want to talk or even respond to this, but i want you to know that i'm not having an easy time with this either and i really wish things hadn't fallen apart the way they have.

Email from Orbitz: 11/2/08

Thanks for traveling with Orbitz! This e-mail confirms the ticket number(s) issued for the "Chicago 11/3/08" trip...

2010: Intriguing Possibilities

After a year off (because 2009 was terrible for movies), I am back with my picks for the best films of the year. I am going to follow a bizarre off-year Grammy system when it comes to foreign flicks: if I was able to watch it prior to the Academy Awards, it is eligible. So, for example, you won't see Dogtooth below: not because it wasn't available (it was, on Netflix), but because it sucked.

And now, without further ado...

The biennial "The Parts Are Greater than the Sum" Matthew Vaughn Award AND the "Mark is going to get on my case because he probably liked Scott Pilgrim better" Award go to...

Kick-Ass

The Award for the Most Unique Movie Experience [that I hope to never have again and would never recommend to anybody I cared about (but you should at least go check out the opening credits on YouTube)] goes to...

Enter the Void

The "David Edelstein hated it, so you know it has to be good" Award goes to...

The White Ribbon

The Award for the Best Faux-Documentary (that was not ruined because its investors got cold feet and the main players got worried that they were going to ruin their careers) goes to...

Exit Through the Gift Shop

The Award for the Best Movie with a One-Eyed Clairvoyant Viking that is mysteriously not directed by Werner Herzog or Terrence Mallick goes to...

Valhalla Rising

The "Darren Aronofsky deserved either the Best Director Oscar or the Uri Geller Broken Spoon because he convinced the entire academy that Natalie Portman can act" Award goes to...

Black Swan

The Award for the Best Foreign Film (that you can tell is a foreign film because the protagonist is Muslim) goes to...

A Prophet

The Award for the Best Foreign TV Mini-Series [that is also a domestic feature film but is not Carlos (because I didn't get a chance to catch that in theaters this year)] goes to...

Red Riding

The coveted "Haters Gonna Hate" Award goes to...

Inception

And finally, The Award For The Best [I still cannot believe that David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin and Trent Reznor and Justin Timberlake teamed up to make a movie about Facebook] Movie of the Year goes to...

The Social Network