Happy New Year...

Blah blah blah. I've never been a big New Year's guy, at least in the party sense. In fact, I don't think I've ever been to an actual New Year's party.

Tonight, some upstairs neighbors are throwing a little bash, so I'm grilling up some salmon skewers as I type this, then will head up to grab some grub (the hostess is a cook of near-professional caliber), then bow out early to put Number One Son to bed.

And then it will be Xbox until 2007, baby.

Best Albums of 2006

This was a good year in music for me. I certainly wasn't overwhelmed with choice but the ones I did buy are sure to be long-term staples of my collection. I was obsessed with each of the following albums:

5. Wolfmother, Wolfmother: Australian power rock trio channels Zep, Sabbath and Deep Purple and sound fresh and exciting while doing it. My favorite review of them praised them for being not so much retro as vintage. Check out their appearance on Letterman, doing their hit "Woman". And you can hear all their songs on their Web site.



4. The Raconteurs, Broken Boy Soldiers: Jack White of The White Stripes hooks up with a few of his favorite musicians for this excellent side project. The craftsmanship is fantastic -- dig the drum intro to "Yellow Sun" -- and the result is one of the most eclectic yet listenable albums of the year.

3. Ride the Blinds, Ride the Blinds: This San Francisco trio was my find of the year. For a band that still plays to crowds of 20 people in tiny local clubs, they produce some of the best rock and roll this side of the Rolling Stones. If you like the Allman Brothers, Creedence, the Stones, or Zep, you need to hear this band. For a free taste, check out the tunes on their MySpace page. And that's not even their best stuff.

2. The Black Keys, Magic Potion: This is the fourth album for the Akron-based blues-rock duo, and it may just be their best. While it lacks a "catchy" track like "10 a.m. Automatic" off their last album, the whole thing hangs together better than any of their previous efforts. These guys just rock the house through all 11 tracks, from the opening drum roll and guitar lick of "Just Got to Be" to the feedback-heavy shrieks of "Elevator". Streaming tunes here.

1. Ben Harper, Both Sides of the Gun: This is possibly Harper's best work in nearly a decade. Harper splits his first studio-recorded double CD with one disc of acoustic ballads and one disc of funk and rock-driven electric stuff. Highlights include the lush ballad "Picture in a Frame" and Zep-worthy guitar wankfest "Serve Your Soul".

Holy...

I'm guessing this woman won't get invited to many more parties.

LILLINGTON, N.C. - A woman attacked a man in his genitals during a Christmas party, injuring him badly enough that he needed 50 stitches, authorities said Friday. Rebecca Arnold Dawson, 34, was charged with malicious castration in a fight early Tuesday at a party hosted by the 38-year-old man's girlfriend, police said.

* * * *

"I believe he needed more than 50 stitches to repair the damage, but he is back home at this point," police Cpl. Brad Stevens said. "All we can tell you is that the injury was done with her hands."

She must have had one helluva set of nails. Oh, and she was charged with "malicious" castration? Is there any other kind?

Books of the Year

Man, I was weak on the book front this year. I think I only read 19 or so, down a full third from 27 the year before. A few of those were really long, though. One fantasy trilogy was 3,000 pages and I read another sci-fi book of about 800 pages.

I partly attribute the decrease in books read to decreased commute time that began shortly after mid-year when I discovered the commuter bus that shaved a good 30 minutes off my daily round-tip commute. Another reason was there was about one full month where all I read was magazines, front to back. And not bullshit like Time, Newsweek or Juggs, but meaty stuff like Discover and The Atlantic Monthly.

I also read a lot of decent, but not great, books this year. Only a couple really stood out as being incredible, gripping reads. Here is what I would say are my top 5:

5. The Blind Side, Michael Lewis: Another fine sports tale by one of my favorite authors. Learn how a combination of blood-thirsty defensive ends, a family of lily-white evangelical Christians, and freakish physical talents transformed a ghetto-dwelling youngster into one of football's hottest commodities.

4. Inside Intel, Tim Jackson: A great expose of everyone's favorite semiconductor company.

3. A Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin: A gritty, detailed fantasy that is what you get when you take hobbits and that whole good-evil struggle thing out of Tolkein.

2. Light, M. John Harrison: A poignant little sci-fi tale that combines the grit and melancholy of William Gibson with the light, witty touch of Douglas Adams.

1. Guests of the Ayatollah, Mark Bowden: A detailed, engrossing account of the Iran hostage crisis. Amazingly reported and written, with nary a dull moment, this was easily my favorite book of the year.

Here are my bottom 5:

5. Orphans of Chaos, John C. Wright. Wright penned one of the most remarkable sci-fi trilogies in recent years with his space opera The Golden. Orphans was not so much bad as simply disappointing. Book two is coming out soon and I am hoping it's an improvement on the first.

4. An Army of Davids, Glenn Reynolds: The Instapundit posts his wisdom in book form. I suppose if you were new to him you'd find his musings on nanotech, media, space policy and terrorism interesting but for me it was just a dead-tree edition of his blog.

3. A Feast of Crows, book four in the fantasy series mentioned in my Top 5. I dropped it after about 100 pages. I reluctantly started it out of a sense of duty to keep up with the epic, but then I realized that if you can't be bothered to wrap up a story in your first 3,000 pages, I can't be bothered to continue reading your stuff.

2. Coffee: A Dark History, Antony Wild: An economically illiterate look at the coffee industry by a former bean trader who feels guilty about his past job for some reason but is too intellectually lazy to do anything other than rely on Noam Chomsky and anti-globalization activists to inform his view.

1. Vellum, Hal Duncan: Another book I didn't actually finish, this one is a fantasy novel about the ongoing struggle between the angels. I am always down for some good War in Heaven action, but what decent writing there was wasn't enough to overcome the confusing structure and numerous nonsequiters.

What were your best/worst reads of the year?

Athiesm

Time to go deep, here. Garfield Ridge has a nice post on athiesm, which is something I've been thinking about a lot lately, in between raising pinatas and watching my Lego Wookiee rip the arms off of little Lego stormtroopers.

Part of it is that my son will enter elementary school in a few years and I wonder if it will be a good idea to send him at some point to Catholic school, which I attended from grades 4-12. I'm an athiest now but consider my Catholic education -- which at no point featured ruler-wielding penguins -- to be the most valuable instruction I've ever received outside of the "Gears of War" manual.

In middle school and high school, an hour of religion class was part of everyone's daily curriculum. Of course it was intended to strengthen belief in God by further steeping young minds in the history and culture of the Church. But the courses also went into great historical detail of the Middle East and Europe, and parsing passages of the Bible later enhanced my appreciation of the great body of literature that taps its rich imagery.

That religious education also laid the foundation for my later interest in China. One high school course I took was "Non-Christian Religions", in which we studied Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Daoism and Confucianism. The latter three marked the start of my fascination with things Chinese (as opposed to broadly Asian, which I believe began at about age 10 when I fell in love with a Japanese waitress at a Beni Hana in Edmonton).

Ironically, it was also that class that planted seeds of my eventual abandonment of faith. When you're talking religious belief systems built around faith in a supernatural power, what makes one superior over another? I'm talking here in the metaphysical sense -- what makes the concept of a single, all-powerful God more believable than a pantheon of gods, or an impersonal cosmic force, or spirits that inhabit all animals?

I've also been following developments with one of my favorite sci-fi authors, John C. Wright, who wrote the brilliant libertarian space opera "The Golden Age". For years he was a rabid athiest and even wrote a fantasy series designed to show the foolishness of Christianity.

Then he had a series of religious experiences and converted to Christianity. Before you roll your eyes, his account of the coversion is fascinating and he writes of it with the clarity and precision of Jesuit scholar rather than the bombast of a televangelist. Given the brilliance of his fiction and his obvious intelligence and erudition, I find it impossible to just dismiss out of hand. This isn't Bill O'Reilly or Michael Moore.

What I find most interesting is that Wright talks about having constructed, pre-conversion, what he considered to be bulletproof arguments in defense of athiesm. What changed his mind wasn't any sort of flaw in the logical construction of his arguments, but rather the intensely personal experience of having had visions and feeling that he was filled with the Holy Spirit, which he somehow makes sound better than the feeling I get from imagining Cameron Diaz eating Kate Winslet under the table.

I suspect that is what Cal Thomas, the Washington Post columnist who sparked GR's post, is talking about when he says athiests cannot be convinced by information alone. Many faithful believe because they have had a personal religious experience, not because they have weighed the logical merits of both sides of the debate. And that's why a lot of arguments between believers and non-believers are just pointless -- a religious awakening is just not replicable in a lab for skeptics to experience for themselves.

Rock Album Quiz

Here's a quiz on how well you know your rock album art. It's actually pretty damn tough once you get past the low-hanging fruit like "Dark Side of the Moon" and "Tommy". I got 17 or 18 on my own. With the assistance of two coworkers, as well as Google and Amazon, we are up to 34 or 35 now.

(Thanks to Garfield Ridge for the link).

Sony: Down but Not Out

What's that you say? The PlayStation 3 isn't necessarily doomed to an agonizing, slow, painful death? Such is the viewpoint of Anthony Perez, a video game journalist at Amped News. The first half of the article lists all the problems the PS3 faces but Perez concludes it's too early to count Sony out because, well, they're Sony.

"In the end, however, Sony still has the definitive brand in gaming and to the average mainstream consumer that's all that really matters."

To be fair, Perez points out that Sony has a pretty promising array of titles lined up for next year. I'm still rather skeptical because there are also the factors of price, availability, competition, and price. And don't tell me price doesn't matter, otherwise every gamer in the country would have $5,000 Alienware PCs.

Meanwhile, here's something else to be annoyed at Sony for: the death of Lik-Sang, an online video game retailer. They not only sold hardware and software intended for one country in other countries, but they also sold components and accessories for various gaming systems.

They saved my ass in China when our housekeeper's daughter unwittingly plugged my 110v U.S. Xbox into a 220v Chinese wall socket. Through Lik Sang, I was able to order a new power circuit and get my 'box running in less than a week.

But Sony's always the interests of the gamer at heart, right?

Things You Learn On a Slow Day In the Office

1. The pervy old man on "Family Guy" is named Herbert

2. There are 7 distinct light saber fighting styles

3. And Yoda mastered them all

4. But he was particularly adept at the ataru style

5. Which is believed to have been lost when Yoda died

6. The Wikipedia entry on Jabba the Hutt is 6,085 words long

7. The Wikipedia entry on Bill Clinton is 6,247 words long

8. The Wikipedia entry on light saber fighting styles is 14,834 words long

9. You can still buy a decent home in the Seattle area for under $400K

Manhunter

Last night, we watched Michael Mann's "Manhunter", the first Hannibal Lecter movie based on the book Red Dragon.

It was pretty good and had an obvious influence on "Silence of the Lambs", which came just 5 years later.

But it definitely wins the Oscar for "Best Use of 'In-a-Gadda-da-Vida' in a Cinematic Setting".

Well, I'd Pay to See That

. Don't miss Letterman's comment.

Priceless

Being the red-blooded American that I am, I spent my Saturday finishing up shopping for the family, mostly Number One Son. After hitting all the usual suspects (and some unusual ones) I think I have this year all wrapped up, so to speak.

I was expecting it to be pretty crazy out there, and I wasn't disappointed. It took 10 minutes just to leave the Toys R Us parking lot. But for the most part people were in good moods and were helpful and nice.

Is Christmas in America too commercial? Of course it is, if your life is ruled by advertising and marketing. But I don't know any losers who actually fit that description. People shop and spend gobs of money because they like making their wives and husbands and sons and daughters happy. Would our love be any lessened if we didn't exchange a single gift? Of course not. But it's fun to give gifts (and to get them), and we do it as a family only once a year.

I do have to say that I was a bit shocked to discover, after adding up various receipts, how much I've spent this year.

Roboreptile from Best Buy: $90.

Bicycle from Toys R Us: $80.

"Lego Star Wars II" video game from Target: $60.

Look on Dad's face after seeing bank statement: Priceless.

A Christmas Break-In

A friend came over today and we were heading out to pick up a pizza. I suggested we take my 1969 Ford Galaxie 500 XL convertible, since he had never ridden in it before.

The car was parked as usual in our building's secure garage, but I knew something was wrong when I opened the door and no light went on. I tried to start her but she was dead. Then I noticed the glovebox open and all the contents on the floor. Odd. Then I noticed the stereo -- a Blaupunkt which sits in a custom box atop the driveshaft hump -- was skewed.

It seems someone went into the car and went through everything. After dumping the glovebox contents, they left it open and the little tiny light in there drained the battery. They didn't rip out the stereo box because it has a removable face plate that I keep in the apartment. Since I've heard too many stories about thieves cutting soft-tops to get inside, I never keep the car locked.

I hadn't driven the Galaxie in a while so it really could have happened a couple weeks ago. Building management has posted notices that there have been a rash of car break-ins recently, so I guess we got hit as well.

Oh well. To whoever broke into my car, Merry Christmas, fuckers. I'm glad you didn't get shit from my car and I hope you ring in 2007 in the state prison shower.

Bottom Story of the Day

It's only 8 a.m. but I'm confident this is indeed the most meaningless, vapid, non-story of the day. Who gives a scabby rat's ass? Now, a story like "Trump, Rosie caught in smotherbox" would at least be interesting, if nauseating.

"Oh. A Cherry Coke."

This is probably old, but I haven't seen it anywhere else. Of course, that only means that neither Instapundit nor Garfield Ridge had it. But this is probably the best clip I've seen since Spock's Crib. Every line is a gem. We watched this in my office like four times, and each time we were all in tears. Oh, and if the voice sounds familiar, well, it should.

PS3: Buzz to Bust

That's the conclusion of Time magazine, which lists Sony's white elephant as one of five major disappointments of 2006. It shares the honors with O.J. Simpson and "Snakes on a Plane". Key line: "You know you're in trouble when you get beat by something called a Wii."

Well, I'll Be

Huh. I had no idea. You learn something new every day, I guess.

Warning: Potentially NSFW.

I forgot to blog about this a while back, but I was reminded of it with the approach of Christmas.

A couple months ago, Number One Son, not yet 5 years old, came home and said, "You know what Dad? There's no such thing as Santa Claus."

Verrry cautiously, I went, "Oh yeah? Why do you say that?"

I turns out that the Muslim kid at school, who incidentally is Number One Son's best friend there, was going around spilling the beans to everyone.

The good news is that Number One Son seems to have forgotten this cruel truth about the world, so all is good. At least until Mohammed opens his mouth again.

In which case, I've coached Number One Son to say, "Oh yeah? Well guess what? You aren't going to get 72 virgins, either."

Temptation

We got two ginormous Christmas boxes from my parents today. I told the Oriental Wife, "Let's unpack them and see what's in them!"

"No way!" she said. "Number One Son won't be able to stand having to wait a whole week before opening the presents!"

"That's one of the joys of Christmas as a kid," I informed her. "Every kid has to go through the agony of seeing presents under the tree days in advance, but not being able to do a damn thing about it. Plus, I'm kind of curious myself to see what the packages are."

"Aha!" she exclaimed. "You just want to open them to satsify your own curiosity! I'm telling you, if you unpack them, I'm going to end up peeking at all my presents!"

"Aha!" I said. "This isn't about Number One Son! You don't want to open simply because you know you don't have the willpower to make it until Christmas!"

The packages are still sitting in our hallway, unopened.

Some Advice

1. Stay away from ranch dressing for a while. I'm sure you're fine with store-bought stuff, but if you still have an appetite for it after reading this, you're made of sterner stuff than I am.

Give Houston a wide berth for a while. Yes, I was there recently, but only for a week, and I can say with some confidence that, last time I checked, I am not a clean-shaven black man.

For You, An X-Ray Machine

This is one of the best commercials I've seen in a long time.

Q. Are You a Pizza Face?

I was just checking out video game news and reviews site Gamespy when I was prompted to take a survey. I actually like taking most surveys offered by the site because you can usually piece together what the real motive of the survey is, i.e., to gauge interest in an upcoming game, or to gather intel on how consumers view a company or its competitors.

This one was different, though. It was, I shit you not, a survey about acne medications. On a gaming site? Hilarious. But companies throw real money at this stuff, so they must have some reason to think that a video game site might be visited by a lot of pizza-faced geeks. Go figure.

Watch This Now

Check out this video of Ride the Blinds performing live. Yes, the audio quality is dismal and camera work sucks, but if you don't think this is one of the top five music clips ever posted on YouTube, then you are beyond hopeless, should immediately seek out the nearest nailgun, put it to your temple and keep firing until you run out of nails. Be sure to watch through the Bonhamesque drum solo that starts at 3:20.

And Today's Console War Victor Is...

PS3 fanboy objective game industry observer Joe! Congratulations, Joe! Let's look at what made you the day's winner:

First check out these hardware sales for Japan. Let's see, the PlayStation 3 has sold more than 180,000 units while the Xbox 360 has sold just under 180,000 units. Sounds pretty close, huh? Well, not when you consider that the PS3 number is monthly sales while the 360 one is for the past year. Although both systems were outsold by Nintendo's Wii, it's clear the 360 is getting, like, totally pwned in Japan. (Anyone know how to say "pwned" in Japanese? David?)

Second, the "chief visual officer" at Electronic Arts said he reckoned they have only figured out how to use about 20 percent of the PS3's processing power. That would leave a lot of room for improvement. Which they desperately need, by the way.

So, okay, Joe, you win this round, but I ain't selling my 360 just yet.

The Return of Rock

Rock and roll lives. The rock scene has been pretty dismal for many years now, with most of its promise blown away along with Kurt Cobain's brains. Since then we've been treated to a monotonous parade of mediocrity posturing as greatness, of lame bands trying to substitute image and attitude for actual talent, and, for the most part, succeeding wildly.

Exceptions such as The White Stripes don't disprove the underlying assumption but instead stand out as lonely islands of rockitudeness in an ocean of suck.

But there are signs that the foul tides are finally retreating as new bands rediscover the Golden Age of rock, when the licks were hot, vocals were smoky, bass lines were bluesy and recorded tracks were simply proof of concept -- jumping off points for live shows featuring mind-blowing jams and guitar solos worthy of Valhalla.

The lastest encouraging omen I have descried is Ride the Blinds, a San Francisco trio with a seriously outsized sound. Their self-titled album and its follow-up, "Start Running" are must-haves if you have ever found yourself rocking out to one of the following bands: The Rolling Stones, The Who, Led Zeppelin, The Allman Brothers, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Lynyrd Skynyrd.

I can't put it much better than this reviewer on Amazon.com, who probably wrote what is the best music review ever:

Imagine Bon Scott, up in rocker heaven, decided to play a joke on Ted Nugent. One night when Ted is drunk and in a good mood from a day of playing with his guns outdoors, Bon's ghost comes down and sodomizes him. Ted, thinking he's turned gay (not that there's anything wrong with that), believes it must be caused by Lynyrd Skynyrd. Why? Because Ted don't think so good. So Ted chases down the Skynyrd tour bus on the highway, pulls up next to it, and starts unloading buckshot. This leads to crazy mayhem on the bus. Some old groupie who has been around from the 70s, long enough to have a throat crusted with the dried semen from guys in both Creedence Clearwater Revival and War, jumps up from between the drummer's legs. Just then Ted shoots out a tire, sending the bus careening, and making the groupie fall forwards onto the drummer. That drummer spews his load somewhere on her stomach. One chance in a million, the groupie gets impregnated with an evil mix of DNA from Skynyrd, CCR, and war. When the kid grows up he learned to play guitar and recorded this album. This is all true.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that is in fact the best music review ever.

So, rest assured that rock and roll lives. All you have to do is tune in, turn on, and Ride the Blinds.

P.S. Oh yeah, other recent rock-revival acts are: The Black Keys (think Cream), Wolfmother (think Sabbath and Deep Purple), and Earl Greyhound (think Zep). Leave a comment if you know of any more.

Touch Me, I'm Sick

Man, I am really sick. Not as in twisted sick, but sick as in my body has been infected with one of the nastiest bugs I've ever had. I have actually been sick for more than four weeks, and I've passed it on to relatives in Houston and Seattle.

I saw a doctor in Seattle who diagnosed me as having a bacterial infection. He gave me some antibiotics and that indeed helped clear things up, for about three days. Last week it started coming back with a vengeance and today I am sicker than ever.

I did another doctor a few days ago and even though he felt it was just sinus inflammation he reluctantly gave me more antibiotics. But they don't seem to be working at all.

The Oriental Wife is also sick, and this is alarming because the Oriental Wife is never sick. In the 12 years we've been together she has been sick maybe once or twice, and this is by far the worst she's been.

Of course Number One Son is sick as well, though he seems to be in good spirits and is mainly dealing with a mild cough.

Oh, and my mother called yesterday to say this is the worst bug they can remember getting in probably 15 years.

I'm thinking it's bird flu or a terrorist weapon. I was thinking what if someone developed a cold virus or flu bug that acted like malaria -- it wouldn't necessarily kill you outright but you just ended up being really, really sick for the rest of your life. That would suck.

Seriously, has anybody else out there come down with or heard of people coming down with something this nasty? Any idea what it is?

...But Not In Japan

Freshly worked up after delivering the latest whipping to PS3 fanbois, I come across this tidbit about sales of video game hardware in Japan. Turns out that the Wii kicked all kinds of ass, selling 350,000 units there in one week. To compare, the Xbox 360 was the best-selling console in North America in November, and it sold 500,000 in the entire month.

The Wii outsold the PS3 by more than to 10-to-1. I was about to say something rude to Joe but then I looked and saw that 360 sales fell more than 40 percent to just 4,000 units. That means the PS3 outsold the 360 in Japan by 8-to-1. Hell, the PS2 outsold the 360. So the early indication is that many Japanese were indeed just waiting for the PS3 to launch and now that it has hit they are abandoning the 360 in droves.

But those Wii numbers have to be worrying for Sony. They are getting pounded in the U.S. by the 360 and in Japan by the Wii.

But shouldn't Microsoft be worried about the Wii? To a certain extent. But I think they are partly reassured by indications that people will travel the "Wii60" route and buy a 360 and a Wii for just $50 more than one PS3.

Again, it comes back to how quickly Sony can get the wrinkles ironed out of the PS3, ramp production, and lower the price.

It's Official: PS3 Sux0r!!!

Sorry Joe, I can't help it. It's too easy.

GameSpot has a big feature today with side-by-side comparisons of the same games being played on the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3. How did the two machines stack up? If you've been following this saga you already know:

The 360 wiped its ass with the PS3, then flushed it down the crapper.

Okay, that might be overstating things a bit, but let's look at GameSpot's final verdict:

"The Xbox 360 had better graphics in almost all the games we examined... We couldn't capture this in the screenshots, but the Xbox 360 games generally offered better framerates too."

They do note that the battle could be different next year:

"We're going to give the PS3 the benefit of the doubt in this initial round since developers might need more time to figure out how to maximize performance from the Cell and the RSX... The PS3 didn't beat the 360 in this first comparison, but the games do look fine for first-generation titles. The real graphics battle will likely come next year."

The only problem for Sony is, if you're buying a console this holiday or in the next year, which one do you go for: the one that costs $400 and has better graphics, or the one that costs $600 and has worse graphics?

It is possible that programmers will gradually unlock more of the PS3's power and that the console will eventually surpass the Xbox 360 in terms of graphical prowess. Yet I still find it surprising that Sony had a full year to develop superior hardware and yet it still can't match the 360's. When the original Xbox launched, it came out a year after the PS2 and yet it was unquestionably technologically superior in every way. "Halo" looked better than any equivalent title on the PS2.

Of course, the Xbox didn't come close to overtaking the PS2. This might demonstrate that a technological edge is ultimately irrelevant, or that things like a head start, a bigger installed fan base, and a deeper library of games are more important to a console's success. I suspect it's a combination of those factors. The 360 leads now, but things will change if Sony can banish the gremlins from its PS3 division.

Sweet Silver Screen Rides

Dave at Garfield Ridge has a cool post up with his Ten Favorite Movie Vehicles. It's a pretty good list, but mine would look a little different.

For starters, I'd might rank Mad Max's Interceptor as #1, not #3.

I'd also have to list either Vin Diesel's Dodge Charger from "The Fast and Furious" or Wesley Snipes' Charger from "Blade". Either will do. "Bullitt" also had one -- the black car that Steve McQueen chased around in his 'Stang.

My list would also have a place for the Dodge Challenger (why are so many cool movie cars Dodges?) in "Vanishing Point".

And I'd probably also want the EM-50 Urban Assault Vehicle from "Stripes". Oh yeah, gotta have that one. Especially when engaged in a parking spot duel for the last available spot at the mall during Christmas.

The Batmobile from the first movie with Jack Nicholson as the Joker would be pretty sweet, too.

And Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

Shat Chat

Gamespy has a little interview with William Shatner, who voiced Captain Kirk in a new video game, Star Trek: Legacy. There are a few gems from the man who has made a second career out of spoofing his first career.

"The truth of the matter is that I said no for the longest time. I didn't want to do it. But they kept coming back to me, "Please do it." It was the groveling that got me. It broke my heart...

"I have to do a lot of preparation. I need to walk. So I took a walk with my wife. And there's a tree near my house that I have to climb to get into this part, so I climbed the tree and broke off a little twig, and there he was...

"They assailed me. George Takei called me three times, asking if I could get him in the games. And I said, "George, I'll try," and I never made that call. But they didn't want Nimoy. The only person who wants Nimoy is his wife, and she's been having doubts..."

Good stuff. As the Mayor would say, Go have a boo. Whatever the fuck that means.

New Data Not Kind to Sony

The bad news keeps getting worse for Sony and its over-priced, cobbled-together PlayStation 3.

That Blu-Ray drive they insisted on putting in because consumers were hungry as rabid dingos for the hi-def format? Yeah, not so much.

And those 400,000 units Sony said it would sell for its U.S. launch? Well, it made it almost halfway to that goal.

And here's an item saying the Xbox 360 was the clear victor when the same games were played side-by-side with the PS3.

Hey Sony, you know that whole thing about winning this generation of the console wars? Yeah, uh, good luck with that.

You Will Be Assimilated

That was the subject line of an e-mail I sent my buddy Joe, who has so far resisted my exhortations for him to buy an Xbox 360 and not the overhyped and underwhelming PlayStation 3.

I wrote here months ago that Sony was in serious trouble, and I think the evidence so far has borne out that thesis. Joe thinks it's too early to count the electronics giant out. Here's our exchange on the topic:

Me: The New York Times continues to give it to Sony with no lube...

Joe: This may shock you, but I can't say I disagree with most of what they are saying. However, I think that the PS3 will seriously gain traction once developers are used to developing for it. Then, expect some serious kick-ass games that will blow anything that the 360 and the Wee Wee have. Hopefully by then, the price will be lower as well and their online service will be more refined.

I see the PS3 as the game system for the future, and will hit it's stride as the 360 is on the downhill. The Wii, however, with it's unique, physical style of play may have a longer shelf-life.

I've been reading many glowing reviews of the Wii. I'm starting to get intrigued. With it's price point, I might have to consider it sooner rather than later (and you know I"m not much of a console guy generally).

Me: You might be right about Sony, Joe. At least the games should start to look better over the coming year, and they are sure to work out some of the kinks in the online setup. The question is whether or not they have dug themselves a hole too deep to get out of in time to save the business.

Sony is losing more than $300 on each PS3, compared to $100 for the Xbox at launch. Sure, that will come down but they need to crank up production -- and have the demand to soak it up -- in order for that to work. If the 360 and Wii draw away enough would-be PS3 buyers then Sony could be in real trouble financially. Sure, the company has $10 billion in cash, but Microsoft has $40 billion and is on the verge of turning a profit in the Xbox division.

Microsoft may be on to something when they say that launching a year early may turn out to be the deciding factor. I mean, whatever Sony does with price, Microsoft can match and probably beat. In the end, people will look and say, "The PS3 costs X dollars more than a 360".

And you don't even get as many exclusive games. Once, Sony had locked up every cool title. Microsoft had "Halo", and an advance release of "Splinter Cell". But now GTA and other games are no longer Sony exclusives. So unless you really have to have the next "Final Fantasy" or "Kingdom Hearts" game, there's not much reason to pick Sony because of the games.

Unfortunately, Sony has also alienated a lot of gamers from the get-go with hype and arrogance. From comments that the high price tag wouldn't matter because people will be willing to work an extra job to afford one, to repeated launch delays, to more "game footage" that turned out to be pre-rendered and not in-game, Sony has gotten a lot of bad publicity.

In the latest misstep, they apparently released the latest PS3 firmware patch (v1.3), requiring its installation but failing to tell anyone what the patch actually did. Microsoft has actually had a very good public Xbox face over the past couple years. An example is Major Nelson, a guy who is high up in the Xbox Live development crew and who has run a widely-read blog detailing even minor developments. When Microsoft changed or updated Live, Major Nelson would announce it in advance and tell people what to expect. This was actually a result of a corporate-wide strategic decision Microsoft made to encourage blogging by its employees, rather than treat it as a threat like many other companies. Sony has yet to develop a similar tool to interface with the public.

Anyway, whether Sony loses this generation probably also depends on how you define "lose". After all, Nintendo certainly lost the last generation, yet they are stronger than ever now thanks to the DS and Wii magic. Since Sony had like 70 percent market share with the PS2, probably anything short of that will be looked upon as a failure. I think it's reasonable to think Sony's share will fall to 50 percent this go-around. I could even see things shaking out so each company has roughly one-third of the market.

Oh, one thing Sony can probably count on is the Japan market. The Xbox 360 is only selling about one-fifth as many units as the PS2 (yes 2, not 3). So there it's a race between them an Nintendo. But the DS is wildly popular there, much more so than the PSP, so it remains to be
seen whether that magic will spill over to the Wii as well.

I think you told me once that you had a friend with a 360 and you saw "Oblivion" on it. I know it sounds hard to believe, especially if you've dealt with Microsoft software, but the 360 really is a slick piece of engineering in terms of the hardware, interface and network. It handles the gaming aspect flawlessly, and while it's still a bit short in the whole entertainment hub idea, it has the framework to do some really cool stuff in the future. I have the 360 hooked up to my router, which lets it pull music, photos and video from my PC in the next room and play them over our 36" TV and surround-sound stereo setup. The promise is there. Right now I would say the biggest drawback to the 360 is the meager 20GB hard drive. That makes it tough to do big downloads, like hi-def movies and TV shows they recently launched. They need to make a 100GB drive available soon, and have some sort of tool to make it easy to transfer your saved games and files over.

(The following is just additional commentary and was not part of my exchange with Joe):

So I think the momentum is clearly with the Xbox at this point, and the Wii is threatening to steal many other Sony customers away, particularly in Japan. Sony may be able to recover but it will be a tough slog with no simple solution. They need to get more machines on the market. They need some kick-ass, must-have games. They need to iron out the wrinkles in their firmware and in their online service. There are other issues, too: price and the viability of the Blu-Ray format chief among them. Who knows? Maybe in a year or two the system will be worth owning.

For now, though, let's fire up "Gears of War".

"Gears"

Everyone's favorite old coot asked me how I liked "Gears of War", the new blockbuster game for the Xbox 360.

Short answer: This is my favorite game on the system so far.

After the "Halo" series, "Gears" is probably the best action shooter on the Xbox. The graphics are great, the action is brutal and furious and, more importantly, the gameplay is just sweet.

Journalist Clive Thompson put it best when he said it's like a sonnet -- it doesn't break any new ground per se, but it excels at everything it does, basically attaining purity of its particular art form.

If you haven't fired up your 360 recently, now is the time to do it. And "Gears" is far from the only must-have out there. If you're into tactical shooters, the new "Rainbow 6" is supposed to be excellent (I have it but haven't played due to my "Gears" obsession), the new "Splinter Cell" delivers awesome stealth-action, and "Viva Pinata" is a colorful, quirky game in which you tend to a virtual garden and attract and raise pinata lifeforms.

Better get your letter off to Santa, or at least send him an SMS.

Yeah Yeah

Okay Mayor, here's your post.

What's up with my recent radio silence? I don't know. I didn't decide to stop posting after some dramatic realization that I'm sick of the whole enterprise. It was just a series of daily decisions that I'd rather be doing something else at any given moment -- reading, playing with my boy, sketching, playing "Gears of War", or surfing for porn. Okay, it's mainly been surfing for porn, but you get my point.

I've also been dissatisfied with the site. I keep thinking I should do a proper site with prettier graphics, a spiffier layout and better publishing tools. I've tinkered with things like Vox but not in a serious way. I'm torn between keeping this a low-key, pseudo-anonymous affair and busting out with something more personal and open using my full name. The former grants me the peace of mind to write outrageous and opinionated rants. The latter, however, would let me point to a whole bunch of interesting stuff, a lot of it job-related.

One thing I want for sure is to ditch the name "Elemenohpee". I liked it because it bore a whimsical resemblance to "Eleemosynary", the name given to a mass-mind consciousness in John C. Wright's excellent Golden Age trilogy (the real definition is here, which expands one's understand of what Wright was driving at). I plucked it out of thin air and I had no idea at the time that it was also the name of a maker of surfing gear.

Any ideas?