May 22, 2006

Hey folks, it's been a long time since I rapped at ya.



Last weekend was Vegas: food, wine, gambling and cars? For what more can a young boy like myself ask? (Christ, is that how I have to word it if I don't want to end with a preposition?) Kat, her dad and I went to Vegas for a long weekend. The main event was a heart valve conference John wanted to attend and Kat and I basically just love the city. We had planned just one nice dinner and were going to wing the rest, and I think that worked out wonderfully. I don't want to call it spontaneous since we basically planned the next day each night and we all know how un-spontaneous I am (right, girls?).



The one nice planned dinner was Le Cirque in the Bellagio. Overall, the dinner was definitely a gamble (rarr rarr) since I loved 4/5 courses while Kat/John were only happy with a couple. Let's see if I can remember what we had... oyster w/ caviar (the amuse bouche), lobster salad, squash puree w/ sweetbreads, foie grae, snapper and then a venison chop. The snapper was fairly mundane and uninspired (basically a nice filet but flavorless) but everything else was interestingly flavored and complementary. The waitstaff was attentive and available without being pushy, though they made up a story when they didn't know the answer to something. They set the table with Laguiole knives and John nonchalantly asked "Hey, do you know why there is a bee on the handle of this knife?" Two different waiters said something about how the grandfather of the owner of the company used to be a beekeeper and so they adopted it as their logo. In all actuality, it was a seal Napoleon gave to the town of Laguiole in honor of the men they sent to battle. Oh well, we didn't correct them since we weren't trying to test them, just making conversation. Anyway, I loved the meal but Kat and John were a bit disappointed and we all agreed that Picasso was a better experience for the money.



I'll continue later...

May 17, 2006

You heard it here first:

http://www.engadget.com/bloggers/chris-ziegler/

May 10, 2006

Oh, what a great history!
  1. AT&T is forced by the US DOJ to split into seven baby bells:
    1. Ameritech
    2. Bell Atlantic
    3. BellSouth
    4. NYNEX
    5. Pacific Telesis
    6. Southwestern Bell
    7. US West
  2. Original parent company AT&T spins off AT&T Wireless
  3. Southwestern Bell and Pacific Telesis merge to form SBC
  4. SBC and BellSouth partner to start Cingular
  5. SBC purchases Ameritech
  6. Cingular purchases AT&T Wireless
  7. SBC purchases AT&T
  8. SBC renames itself at&t (lowercase)
  9. at&t rebrands Cingular to AT&T Wireless
  10. at&t will soon merge with BellSouth
Customers of the old AT&T Wireless sevice were often referrenced as Cingular Blue while other customers were Cingular Orange. Someone suggested the new color should be based on the beating the customers have taken, Black and Blue.

May 8, 2006

I wouldn't be too surprised if this was uploaded a bit too soon, but Sony Europe has a picture of the "new" PS3 controller. If someone took a PS2 dual-shock and then photoshopped in a USB port and some really crummy lights, it would look exactly like the real thing:

I'm not terribly proud of it, but I just watched the entire Sony E3 press conference. I'm not going to give you a play by play, but here are the highlights (lowlights?):

  1. Blu-ray should hold 50GB while the 360 discs only hold 9GB. This could be important down the line.
  2. GranTurismo HD is GT4 with slightly better graphics, but without a lot of the polish. The Grand Canyon demo didn't have any dust!
  3. The eye-toy/card game demo was actually pretty cool. This example wouldn't be terribly fun, but I can definitely see the potential for innovation here.
  4. Their online service? Everything they announced is supported by Xbox Live. Note they didn't mention anything about playing games with their free service.
  5. The PS1 Ridge Racer on PSP was one of the worst demos I've ever seen where the product actually worked as expected.
  6. The online store for their kareoke product looks great... for a 2 foot UI. Just try using it on a 27" TV.
  7. Of the games shown, only Eight Days looked impressive, but it also looked more like you were watching a movie than playing a game.
  8. The EA demos were almost painful to watch. I'm sure some of the technology will improve games, but they do not look that impressive standalone.
  9. The new controller looks exactly like the PS2 controller which looked exactly like the PS1 controller. The difference? Built in wireless and 3D pitch/roll/yaw sensors. No more boomerang. :-(
  10. Last and my god, most important: The price! I thought Microsoft was a bit crazy for launching two SKUs at $299 and $399. PS3 will be available in the US at $499 for the 20GB model and $599 for the 60GB model. Is the techology really that expensive? Was it smart to sacrifice price for that level of technology? This could be the one main reason that the 360 holds onto a piece of the marketshare. Little Billy will have difficulty convincing Mommy to drop more on his xmas present than she does for both of the monthly family car payments!

May 2, 2006

Don't want to lose this example:

using CSS to draw an expandable box with custom borders.