Moved

Yesterday was the big moving day, now begins the unpacking of the big piles of stuff. It's a pain, but no complaints here - I'm thankful to have piles of stuff and a house. :)

Unintentional comedy

Microsoft, the ultimate straight man, explains 133t5p33k. Imagine Bob Saget teaching explaining what today's kids think is cool.

Orange Sky

Seen that new Nissan Honda commerical where those guys drive around and add stickers to their truck? Well the music is some kind of nice. It's "Orange Sky" by Alexi Murdoch. Here's the iTunes link.

Homer vs. Burns

There's something strangely entertaining about watching voice actors of famous characters doing their thing. Conan, former Simpsons writer, interviews the voice of homer et. al. and the voice of burns et al. Add Hank Azaria and between those 3 actors (Gods among men) you've got most of Springfield.

Amazing race started out OK, but...

The final episode of Taxi Lottery, I mean Amazing Race was on last night. Seriously, once again we saw how winning or losing came down to a taxi driver knowing where something is or not. In other words, dumb luck. Same with that second last roadblock, try these hundred or so locks until you find the one your key fits. Those sort of tests of luck were the worst part, but it was also lame to see so many points where everyone gets delayed to a set time. Good work getting in the lead, but it doesn't mean anything now.

And I really wanted to like this show. The result was a let down too since that horrible human being Kendra won. She's the one who questioned in disgust why people in poverty "keep breeding".

iTrip Mini vs. iCarPlay

Quick answer: The Griffin iTrip Mini is better than the Monster iCarPlay, and not just because of the snappier name. Less quick answer:

I wanted an FM transmitter so I could listen to music from my iPod Mini in my car. Just tune your radio to a preset station and the play the iPod as normal... ahhh... relief from the radio.

I first bought the iCarPlay. The combination charger and transmitter appealed to me (one less thing to plug in) and for some reason I thought the sound out of the dock connector should sound better than the sound out of the headphone connector. Of the many things I've learned from video games, one is all monsters have a fatal weakness. This one's is bad sound quality. Every preset station had some static and the worse part was this little whine it would make perfectly sync'd with the RPMs of the car engine. Yah. Step on the gas and over my speakers I'd hear "wwwwhhhhhheeeeeeeeee". That alone was reason to return it, but I should also add the thing looks bad with it's tacky red lights and mess of wires.

Now the iTrip sounds good. At first I was worried because I saw you need to install some sort of playlist of stations into iTunes then sync that up and I was just about to do that when I actually read the manual. You only need to do the install if the default station doesn't work in your area (i.e. there's an existing radio station at that frequency). All I did was plug the iTunes in and it worked and lucky me, the default station works fine here (Calgary, Canada). No installs, no muss, no fuss (so to say). I also found I don't need the integrated charger, the vast majority of my trips fit well within the iPod's battery life. For the odd very long trip I can take a separate car charger. One small issue, I need a different EQ setting to sound good in the car than when I use headphones. Oh, and the iTrip Mini looks very slick attached to the iPod Mini, almost like the designed it just for it...

I'm happy with my iTrip.

Someone ate half my Wired

I just picked up the latest issue of my (by far) favorite magazine, and the first thing I noticed was how thin it is. Back in 2000 Wired was as thick as the Sears Christmas Catalogue. Man what happens if it completely goes away? I'll need to find something else to fill that void in my life. Maybe I'll take up city jumping...