A ship of reason has finally sliced through the waves of whackiness. The involved whacky? Video clips of people cooking popcorn with cellphones. I never believed it could happen, else we’d have reports of teenagers frying their brains as they chat on their handsets. And at least now, if—I mean, when relatives send me spam links with these videos, I can spam them right back with this evidence that they were taken for suckers.
With the introduction to the new iPhone, I figure many folks will be picking it up when it gets tossed into the wild on July 11. Why? Well, not just because of the increased speeds, GPS capability, actual native applications developed for the device or its impressive battery life. The most outstanding feature? Its cost; $199 for the 8gig model and $299 for the 16gig one. A two year contract with AT&T is needed, but personally, it’s not like I’m going anywhere (I don’t like the other carriers, except for T-Mobile, but we’ve moved on). The data plan will be $30 for unlimited data. If unlimited text messaging isn’t included, I’m going to be a sad panda.
When I bought the first generation iPhone (and its still kicking… never had to exchange or repair it), I promised that the only way I’d buy a new model was for increased storage capacity. I couldn’t care less about GPS (unless there’d be an app like TomTom). I even didn’t really care much for 3G (although I admit, EDGE is hella irritating). However, a friend of mine did bring up a good point about 3G, which was that we could use our iPhones in Japan; just need to get a local SIM card. Other hardware features didn’t really matter to me (my N80 took really oustanding photos… the iPhone’s camera doth sucketh), mainly because I was focused on the software/firmware stuff. While most phones, smart or not, have hardware (buttons) tied to their software, the iPhone doesn’t have these limitations. Many new features can be added to the iPhone, even if they’re the first gen models. That impressed me and got me to buy one. It’s also a strong point for not getting a newer model just because it’s new.
But now, I wouldn’t complain if the new iPhone came with GPS capability. I don’t mind the fact that 3G has been incorporated, because Apple purports that the battery life hasn’t suffered, in fact, it’s improved even with the new candy. Most of all, none of these features have increased the cost of the device itself. For me, I’d get one because every point of interest seems to have aligned just perfectly.
Would you get one? Why or why not?
This coming Thursday, June 12, 2008, is the launch date for Metal Gear Solid 4. I had already reserved a copy of the Limited Edition at Gamestop quite some while back and it’s been an bearable wait. I didn’t spend a lot of time fawning over the previews of the game and only recently lost a good chunk of time watching the latest trailer and video advertisements for the ingame PMCs (Private Military Company). From all that I’ve seen, MGS4 seems to take elements from the previous installments and make them better. For example, the cumbersome, and irritating, camouflage mechanic from Metal Gear Solid 3 has been streamlined into the Octocamo, which is an electronic camouflage system that when activated, automatically blends with whatever surface Snake is next to.
Other changes also helps ease gameplay, like allowing Snake to walk/shuffle while crouched. It has always pissed me off when I had Snake crouched in previous games and tried to move, only to find him going into the prone position. But the best part, for me anyway, is the near certainty that MGS4 won’t do the switcheroo on us like what happened in MGS2.
After watching the trailers, I already have some expectations on the quality of the graphics, which isn’t really a good thing, but with the quality that was in the previous games, I have faith that I won’t be disappointed.
I love my action flicks, but I’m also a sucker for romance films. The Lake House is a romantic comedy starring Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock. Both are lonely individuals trying to make a fresh start for themselves. Complete strangers not really separated by space but by time and only connected via a glass house on a lake and a scruffy dog.
The story takes place in two timelines. For Alex (Keanu Reeves) it’s 2004, while for Kate (Sandra Bullock) it’s 2006. The two meet by correspondence through the lake house’s mailbox. As the shock of what they’re able to do wears off, they begin to open up to, and fall in love with, each other.
There are very few “time bending” themed movies that I like, particularly due to the ease with which time paradoxes occur and the equal ease that they are unobserved by the writer. However, I found The Lake House more enjoyable than not. I have many friends who are unimpressed with the acting talents of Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock, but I feel that they did a good job with their characters in this film. The cinematography was also very good; the imagery and colors were vivid and impressive.
There was a niggling at the back of my mind that this movie was a remake or adaptation and I was quite pleasantly surprised to discover that The Lake House was, in fact, a remake from a Korean movie (Il Mare). Yet the thought in my mind was referring to The Love Letter.
Although I really enjoyed the film, if one was perceptive enough, s/he could guess the various plot points, which is probably one of the reasons I liked it; my guessing the events leading to the ending before they were revealed.
All in all, I’d recommend The Lake House worth renting.
So it seems that not all is perfect in my little Mac bubble. For some strange reason I’m getting Finder crashes/freezes. I did have some problems like that on my other drive but doubt it contributed to its crash. I’m thinking the freeze/crash of Finder is either attributed to VirusBarrier X5 (which was the cause of making my Time Machine browsing irritatingly slow) or my plopping in Firefox 3 RC1/2. I didn’t do a full overwrite and probably did the installation wrong. Still, I don’t have definitive proof that either of these two is the culprit for my less than stellar experience.
I’m going to have to do some experimenting and see what other apps might be the cause of these irritating bouts of unresponsiveness.
