Next Gen Gaming And Video Ahoy
Posted on | February 15, 2008 at 5:54 pm | Comments Off
Well, I finally did it. I ordered a PlayStation 3. I bought it online, so I probably won’t be getting it for a week or two. The more expensive 80GB units (which have SACD and backwards compatibility) are becoming extremely rare and the conventional wisdom says that Sony is going to stop making them soon. I didn’t want to settle for the 40GB unit and bought the 80GB, since I really wanted those extra features.
Although for all I know, I’ll be using it exclusively to play Blu-Ray discs. Every day, it looks more and more like BR has won the HiDef DVD format war against rival format HD-DVD. Wal-Mart joined Netflix and Best Buy this week in essentially dumping HD-DVD and focusing on Blu-Ray exclusively. And it looks like HD-DVD creator Toshiba is giving up on the format. So I’m glad I’m backing the format winner, although having a Next Gen game system along with it is a pretty cool supplement. As I said before, I’ve already got one game (Heavenly Sword) and one set of Blu-Ray discs (Lost, S3) just waiting for it.
I know… I don’t need more things to take up my time. But at least I’ll never be bored.
Stay tuned.
Latre.
Love Is A Battlefield
Posted on | February 14, 2008 at 6:22 pm | 2 Comments
Happy VDay! I’m going to steal a page from Steve’s book. Here’s a list of all the songs I’ve got in iTunes (my CDs I’ve ripped plus eMusic MP3 downloads) and in Music Collector (catalog of my CD collection) that start with the word “Love”. It’s not a complete list of all “Love” songs I own by any means, since I’ve cataloged the tracks on only about 1/3rd of my CD collection so far.
“Love” (Cinerama)
“Love” (Elefant)
“Love” (Robyn Hitchcock)
“Love” (Mission UK)
“Love” (Poster Children)
“Love” (Smashing Pumpkins)
“Love” (Chris Von Sneidern)
“Love & Death” (The Stills)
“Love & Desperation” (Jeffrey Lee Pierce)
“Love & Kisses” (Sam Phillips)
“Love & Me Make Three” (Violent Femmes)
“Love > Building On Fire” (Talking Heads)
“Love 1″ (Guided By Voices)
“Love A Diamond” (Tonic)
“Love And A Bucket Full Of Holes” (Bill Nelson)
“Love and Anger” (Kate Bush)
“Love And Beauty” (The Moody Blues)
“Love And Hate You” (Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark)
“Love And Muscle” (Northern Pikes)
“Love And Only Love” (Neil Young And Crazy Horse)
“Love And Peace Or Else” (U2)
“Love And Violence” (Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark)
“Love Anyway” (Mike Scott)
“Love At First Sight” (Lush)
“Love at First Sight” (XTC)
“Love Athena” (Olivia Tremor Control)
“Love Battery” (Buzzcocks)
“Love Battery” (Naked Raygun)
“Love Breakdown” (White Door)
“Love Burns” (Passion Fodder)
“Love By Hand” (The Planet Wilson)
“Love Can Destroy Everything” (The Raveonettes)
“Love Chronicles” (Al Stewart)
“Love Circus” (Jeffrey Lee Pierce)
“Love Comes” (The Posies)
“Love Comes Inside” (The Maggies)
“Love Comes Quickly” (Pet Shop Boys)
“Love Coming Down” (The Orange Peels)
“Love Cynical Style” (Even In Blackouts)
“Love Delicatessen” (The Presidents Of The United States Of America)
“Love Dies Down” (Tommy Keene)
“Love Don’t Come Easy” (The Moody Blues)
“Love Explosion” (The Lightning Seeds)
“love explosion” (Weezer)
“Love Fall Down” (Dreams So Real)
“Love For Sale” (Talking Heads)
“Love Forever” (Chapterhouse)
“Love Goes Down The Drain” (The Monochrome Set)
“Love Goes On!” (The Go-Betweens)
“Love Gravy” (Rick James & Ike Turner)
“Love Grenade” (The Cavedogs)
“Love Has Given Up” (Maritime)
“Love Her For That” (Teddy Thompson)
“Love II” (House of Love)
“Love III” (House of Love)
“Love in a Car” (House of Love)
“Love in Flames” (Be Bop Deluxe)
“Love in Motion” (Icehouse)
“Love In The Abstract” (Bill Nelson)
“Love in the Shadows” (The Magnetic Fields)
“Love in Vain” (Pete Shelley)
“Love In Veins” (Ian McCulloch)
“Love Is” (The Beautiful South)
“Love Is” (The Chameleons UK)
“Love Is” (Myracle Brah)
“Love Is ….” (Mansun)
“Love Is A Sign” (The Go-Betweens)
“Love Is A Two-Way Street” (Pianosaurus)
“Love Is A Wonderful Colour” (Icicle Works)
“Love Is A Wonderful Colour” (Ian McNabb)
“Love Is All” (The Rapture)
“Love Is Coming Through The Door” (Stew)
“Love Is Expensive and Free” (Fastball)
“Love Is Gone” (Matthew Sweet)
“Love Is Lies” (Buzzcocks)
“Love Is Like a Bottle of Gin” (The Magnetic Fields)
“Love is Like Jazz” (The Magnetic Fields)
“Love Is Not Enough” (Nine Inch Nails)
“Love Is Not Linear” (Girls Say Yes)
“Love Is Nothing” (Liz Phair)
“Love Is Only A Feeling” (The Darkness)
“Love Is Strange” (Fay Ray)
“Love is Stretching” (The Heart Throbs)
“Love Is Stronger” (Sebadoh)
“Love Is Stronger Than Witchcraft” (Robert Pollard)
“Love Is Swift Arrows” (Be Bop Deluxe)
“Love Is The Subject” (Odds)
“Love Is…” (Mansun)
“Love Itself” (Leonard Cohen)
“Love IV” (House of Love)
“Love Kills” (Radio Birdman)
“Love Less” (New Order)
“Love Letter Boxes” (The Posies)
“Love Letters” (Steve Jones)
“Love Like Blood” (Icehouse)
“Love Like Ours” (Elastica)
“Love Like This Can’t Last” (Lloyd Cole)
“Love Love” (Pulp)
“Love Love Love” (The Mountain Goats)
“Love Love Love” (Pere Ubu)
“Love Lovely Love” (Jonny Polonsky)
“Love Me” (B-Movie)
“Love Me” (Love and Rockets)
“Love Me Like You” (The Magic Numbers)
“Love Me Now” (Signs Point To Yes)
“Love Me to Death” (Mission UK)
“Love Me Tonight/Get On Boards” (Kayak)
“Love My Way” (Grant-Lee Phillips)
“Love My Way” (The Polyphonic Spree)
“Love Of A Victim” (Kayak)
“Love Of Minds” (Odds)
“Love On a Farmboy’s Wages” (XTC)
“Love On The Rocks With No Ice” (The Darkness)
“Love Potion #9″ (Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass)
“Love Reality” (Reggie and the Full Effect)
“Love Revolution” (Big Star)
“Love Ruins Everything” (Lloyd Cole)
“Love Should Be A Crime” (Swirl 360)
“Love Slaves To Paradise Lost” (Mitch Easter)
“love so pure” (Puffy AmyYumi)
“Love So Right” (Bee Gees)
“Love Song” (Ocean Blue)
“Love Song” (Simple Minds)
“Love Songs” (The Greenberry Woods)
“Love Songs” (New Model Army)
“love story” (Amnesia)
“Love Story” (Great Lakes Myth Society)
“Love Supreme” (Naked)
“Love Theme” (Idle Wilds)
“Love Theme” (Graeme Revell)
“Love These Hands” (Northern Pikes)
“Love To A Monster” (Okkervil River)
“Love To Burn” (Neil Young And Crazy Horse)
“Love to Hate” (Trotsky Icepick)
“Love To Win” (Bill Nelson)
“Love Tractor” (Ass Ponys)
“Love Vigilantes” (New Order)
“Love Vigilantes” (Poi Dog Pondering)
“Love Voodoo” (Duran Duran)
“Love Wars” (The Beautiful South)
“Love Wasn’t Made For You And Me” (The Go-Betweens)
“Love Will Break You” (Northern Pikes)
“Love Will Keep Us Together” (Flea)
“Love Will Tear Us Apart” (Simple Minds)
“Love With the Madman” (Be Bop Deluxe)
“Love With You” (Jules Shear)
“Love Without Fear” (Bill Nelson)
“Love You Alice/D” (The Apples In Stereo)
“Love You All” (54-40)
“Love You More” (Buzzcocks)
“Love You So What” (Lloyd Cole)
“Love You ‘Til The Day I Die” (Crowded House)
“Love You Too Much” (House Of Love)
“Love Your Self Abuse” (Baby Chaos)
“Love Zombies” (The Monochrome Set)
“Love/Hate” (Liz Phair)
“Loveblind” (The Church)
“Lovechild” (Orchids)
“Loved Ones” (Starflyer 59)
“Loved One’s Lies” (The Jupiter Affect)
“Lovedust” (Luna)
“Loveless” (Lloyd Cole)
“Loveless age.” (Ian McNabb)
“Loveless Love” (The Feelies)
“Lovelife” (Lush)
“Lovely” (Mission UK)
“Lovely 2 C U” (Goldfrapp)
“Lovely Day” (Pixies)
“Lovely Little Swan” (Close Lobsters)
“Lovely Luna” (Circus Guy)
“Lovely Luna” (Kayak)
“Lovely To See You” (Moody Blues)
“Loveman, We Love You!” (Miles Dethmuffen)
“Lover” (Sing-Sing)
“Lover Boy” (L’Arc-en-Ciel)
“Lover Boy At Heart” (Bill Nelson)
“Lover For A Friend” (Hoodoo Gurus)
“Lover Man” (Al Stewart)
“Loverman” (Metallica)
“Lovers Are Mortal” (Be-Bop Deluxe)
“Lovers Crime” (The Hero Cycle)
“Lover’s Day” (Icicle Works)
“Lover’s Leap” (Creeper Lagoon)
“Lovers Or Friends” (Cowboy Mouth)
“Lovers Paradise” (The Coral)
“Lover’s Rock” (The Clash)
“Lovertits” (Peaches)
“Love’s a Dangerous Language” (ABC)
“Love’s A Game” (The Magic Numbers)
“Love’s A Way” (Bill Nelson)
“Love’s Aglow” (Kayak)
“Love’s First Kiss” (Bill Nelson)
“Love’s Great Adventure” (Ultravox)
“Love’s Immortal Shining Angel” (Bill Nelson)
“Love’s Like a Bomb” (Elk City)
“Love’s Ltd” (The Wonder Stuff)
“Love’s Not A Competition” (But I’m Winning) (Kaiser Chiefs)
“Loves on Sale” (Midnight Oil)
“Love’s Sweet Exile” (Manic Street Preachers)
“Love’s Way” (Human Drama)
“Love’s Young Dream” (Charlotte Hatherley)
“Love’s Young Dream” (Ian McNabb)
“Lovesick Antelopes” (Echoboy)
“Lovesong” (The Cure)
I hope this Valentine’s Day finds you in the throes of ecstasy. From eating too much candy, of course. Listen to some love songs. You can never get enough of silly love songs.
Latre.
Lazy Mistakes
Posted on | February 13, 2008 at 11:16 pm | 1 Comment
Try as I might, I can’t think of a single thing to write about tonight. I can’t even do a “Songs That Came Up On The iPod While Jogging” list because I didn’t jog this morning like I had originally planned to do. That was because I woke up too late. That was because I forgot to reset the alarm last night after I had set it to wake me up later than usual the morning before. That was because I had stayed up too late the night before that playing a video game and I wanted to sleep in. Cause and effect… it’s what makes the world go ’round.
This morning would’ve been a perfect time to run too. The weather was great and most of the snow and ice on the ground is melted. It got up into the 60s here today. But, alas, snow is supposed to come in later tonight, so I’m guessing tomorrow won’t be too good for running. I missed my window.
Coincidentally, my neighbor Mary, who lives a couple of doors down from me, has a blog about running. I sometimes see her running the same route I do, and it’s weird reading her blog and recognizing the places she talks about. Like when she talked about slipping on the ice a few blog entries back and I knew pretty much exactly where she had fallen from her description.
I’m working (mentally, at least) on a longer series of linked blog entries, but am waiting on a few things before I can start on that. So, please excuse the recent banality (yeah, yeah, I know… it’s not a recent thing) and dream of better days in store. That series will probably be of interest to only a few people (it involves music), but hopefully I can at least make the writing interesting.
And tomorrow’s Groundhog Day, so I should have something interesting to say about that.
Latre.
Salvaging The Wasteland
Posted on | February 12, 2008 at 10:45 pm | 3 Comments
Yee haw, the 3-month old WGA Strike is over at last. Writers are expected to return to work tomorrow. So, Sue will be happy to hear that tomorrow’s Daily Show (and Colbert Report) should have some of that old zing back. I’m happy about that too. Hopefully the writers can get up to snuff quickly and the enforced downtime didn’t dull their creativity.
But it looks like the 2007/2008 TV season is irrevocably altered. TV series that didn’t get a chance to totally capture audiences before the strike (like The Bionic Woman) aren’t going to get that chance after the strike and are being canceled. TV Guide has a list of what’s happening with all the shows, and whether or not they’re filming any more episodes for this season. Some popular shows, like Heroes and Pushing Daises, won’t be coming back until the fall. 24, which never got a chance to start its 7th season even though some episodes were filmed, won’t be back for almost a year. We won’t be getting that whole 16 episode season of Lost (which was shortened from last year’s episode count), but it does look like we’ll have 13 anyway (11 more, since two have already been shown). Battlestar Galactica will get its full 20 episode final season, although they still don’t know when they’ll be showing the last 10. Some shows, like Smallville, are getting a full season, but that’s rare for the dramas. More comedies are finishing out the season with a full or nearly full run, like 30 Rock and How I Met Your Mother.
I’m sure once the wreckage has cleared, the only true winners will be reality shows. And that means the rest of us are losers. Will networks continue to take risks with expensive scripted series? Oh, those will probably never go away. But I think they’ll continue to be a smaller and smaller percentage of programming. Something tells me the networks were just waiting for something like the strike in order to push more of that crap down out throats and get us used to it. But I’m cynical.
Latre.
Just Don’t Eat It
Posted on | February 11, 2008 at 10:39 pm | 7 Comments
I get a lot of hits on this blog from people searching for “cilantro aversion” and other cilantro-related phrases, which all point to this entry. One recent phrase was “what to do with cilantro”. I give a very clear idea, via a picture in that entry, of what to do with cilantro if you run across some in your house (i.e. flush it). You could also use it in place of mistletoe at Christmas time. Or hang it on your door to ward away cilantro-adverse vampires. Or send it to the USA Network to protest their cancellation of The Dead Zone. Or wrap it around some roses to make a lovely bouquet for your Valentine. Mash it up and apply it as a poultice to your eczema. Mix some in with your Metamucil for that extra fiber kick.
Yeah, I can’t eat the stuff. I believe I’ve already mentioned how I also don’t like celery or anything made from cucumbers. Is that genetic too? Up until about a year ago, I didn’t like mayonnaise. Now, I suddenly do for some reason. I was thinking N turned me on to it, but she doesn’t really like it that much (she prefers Miracle Whip, which I still can’t stomach). I wish I didn’t suddenly like mayo, since it’s… y’know… unhealthy. I was fine with putting the healthier spicy mustard on my sandwiches, but now it’s all about the mayo. At least I try to not slather it on. Jeez, I can’t believe I like mayo. I never thought that would happen. What’s next… brains?
And… get this… I’ve actually been adding raw spinach to things lately (mostly sandwiches and salads). That’s one thing I definitely got from N, who says it’s “smart food”. It’s not too tasty by itself, but it’s okay when you add it to something. But cooked spinach is right out. I’ve also been eating oranges lately, which I’ve never been real big on.
That’s today’s food and taste roundup. Anyone else discover something late in life that you have a taste for that you previously didn’t like?
Latre.
Pens And Swords
Posted on | February 10, 2008 at 4:01 pm | 4 Comments
Looks like the Writers’ Strike is indeed over! Bad news indeed. My DVR is still full of stuff to watch, like that entire first season of Mad Men that I was talking about earlier. Ah well, I’m sure it will take awhile for production to get ramped up again.
Hopefully we’ll get that full 16-episode season of Lost. And I hope the writers got what they wanted.
Jogged Today: Yes (@ 37°F)
Songs That Came Up On The iPod While Jogging:
- “You’re All Forgiven” (Idle Wilds)
- “Dreamland Avenue” (Bill Nelson)
- “Set Still the Time” (Trotsky Icepick)
- “San Francisco” (Alkaline Trio)
- “Fuck And Run” (Liz Phair)
- “Disturbance at the Heron House” (R.E.M.)
- “Loveman, We Love You” (Miles Dethmuffen)
Latre.