Dairy Queen has just introduced a new Blizzard. They call it the “Girl Scouts Thin Mint Cookie Blizzard Treat” (I left out all the trademark and registered symbols in the name - it was already too much to type). I saw a commercial for it last night on TV (even though there isn’t a Dairy Queen within 50 miles of my house). Even though they said the name for it several times, all I could think of after hearing about it was “did they really mix a Girl Scout into that Blizzard?” The name was so long that I automatically shortened it to “Girl Scout Blizzard” and that didn’t put a pretty picture in my head. Oh well, if you happen to have a Dairy Queen close to you, then you might want to go out and give their treat of the month a try. And remember, no Girl Scouts were harmed in the making of your ice cream treat.
I was reminded of the commercial I saw over at the Junk Food Blog.
And BOOM! for $79 you too can own an official Apple cardboard box (clear tape not included). It will connect to your computer easily and keep you warm on those chilly nights. It might even help you to be a more friendly person. Seriously people, you can purchase this at the Apple Store. This screen shot is taken directly from their site and has not been altered (except to crop out the excess).
First thing Sunday morning (as in 12:01 am) I was in line outside of a local game supplier. They were one of the few businesses around here who thought that some of us might want to get our fix as early as possible. I was about 4th in line and by 12:10 I was on my way home with my copy of Guitar Hero Aerosmith for the PS3. The game is a nice complement to the existing Guitar Hero titles, but it is no where near as cool as Guitar Hero III or what Guitar Hero IV promises to be. I must say there are features that I like better than in GH3 and there are things that I don’t like. This is not unexpected. I figured that there would be parts of it that I loved and parts that I hated and I was pretty close to the mark. First off, the game is really geared towards Aerosmith (no surprise considering the game title). If you are not an Aerosmith fan, then you probably won’t pick up this game anyway - so you can stop reading now…
For everyone else still reading this, I make one assumption - that you know something about previous GH titles. The game has great graphics overall - much improved from previous Guitar Hero titles. The movements of the game characters were much better than GH3 - very realistic for the Aerosmith characters. All the standard GH characters were back in this version, but the extra/unlockable characters are more Aerosmith related this time around. My favorite character is Midori - call me weird, but I have a soft spot for the Anime chick. The game does just what it promised. It walks you through some of the more memorable of the Aerosmith venues. You get to hear from the real band members about various topics in the career play and you get to see the cute GH cartoon versions in the multi-player play (I kinda liked the cartoony versions better). I played through the entire game on Easy in a little over 2 hours - just so I could get a good idea of how things were. Then I checked out the online play. The online play is almost identical to the GH3 online play with one exception. You no longer have the Custom Match option. I was pretty disappointed about that because I liked to look over the list and see how many people were waiting to play. Unless I missed something somewhere in the online play (which somebody please tell me if I did), then I am pretty disappointed about that. Even at 2 AM Sunday morning there were people online ready to play. I played for a little while online and then went to bed. When I got up I played some more. I played multi-player with a friend and then more online stuff. The multi-player has the same songs as the solo career, but it plays through like previous versions of GH. For the solo career, you play two songs from bands other than Aerosmith and then you play three Aerosmith songs.
All levels (easy through expert) have the same 31 songs to play. You can purchase another 9 songs in “The Vault” for a total of 40 songs. The game is worth the purchase price for the music alone (40 songs would cost around $80 to download). If you need some new songs to tide you over while you wait for GH4 to launch this fall, then it is well worth it. If you are looking for a new and exciting GH title, then this probably isn’t it. Overall I liked the game. I would give it an 8 out of 1o if anyone were to ask.
In case you are wondering what carnage resulted in two full days of Guitar Hero playing:
one broken whammy bar
one stuck green button
one wrist wrapped as a direct result of long-term game play
four fingers requiring alternating ice and heat to be able to unclench
ten packages of eye drops to re-hydrate two very dry eyes
Maybe you thought you had heard of everything. Maybe you thought with the Internet and all that you had seen it all. And just maybe you thought a return to all things normal was on the horizon. I think that your line of thought couldn’t be any further from the truth. I give you Exhibit A: The Violent Femmes covers Crazy by Gnarls Barkley. From the album’s website:
“Like a Morricone-style dirge recorded by The Mamas and The Papas, Violent Femmes’ cover of Gnarls Barkley’s infamous “Crazy” is like nothing you’ve heard from the legendary alt-rock trio before. Their oft-imitated folk-punk sound is flavored with surf-rock guitar and Theremin, creating a tranquility that is somber and otherworldly.”
Honestly, I like it. I like it better than the original. I like it enough that I might even buy the vinyl even though my record player has long since gone the way of the dinosaur and I will have to beg a dear friend to borrow theirs just to listen to it. This has everything to do with the music and nothing to do with my love of The Violent Femmes (yeah right).
You can listen to a full track on MySpace. It is also available on .
This little video has been making the rounds this week, so I thought I would go ahead and include it here (for the 3 people who haven’t already seen it). After all, it is Star Wars and it is pretty geeky. Which makes it right up my alley. So take a look, have a laugh, and enjoy!
I know you do it. I know you secretly wonder what ever happened to Peter Mayhew. I know you sit there thinking about it more often than you think about cheese. Who are you trying to kid? Everyone knows, so just admit to it and move on with your life. Now that we have that all cleared up we can address your need to know what happened to the remaining Star Wars characters who you only know by movie name…
I don’t normally think much of the mashup sites out there. Most of the time they seem to just be pretty useless and too slow to be any fun. Although it looks like the Tag Galaxy is different. Everything loads very quickly and it helps you to see what tags are related to each other on Flickr. Now, I know you can figure that out for yourself, but sometimes it helps to have another opinion about what other tags might be related to a given topic that you may not have thought of. I would find this site pretty useful if it just listed tags that were related to each other, but it does more than that. It shows you how closely related one tag is to another by the orbits of the tags around the one tag you type into the system.
If you are one of those people who are helping Mozilla break the record for most software downloaded in one day with Firefox 3.0, then make sure you read the system requirements very carefully first. Mac users who are still running Panther or earlier will not be able to upgrade their Firefox at this time (they will need to keep using Firefox 2.0). I have been using Firefox as my primary browser for some time now. I think it is the best browser out there - hands down. I downloaded a version of it on a non-critical machine today, but I will be waiting to install it on my primary machine for at least a week or two to make sure that everything will go smoothly.
I just saw a mention for the new Lumeneo Smera. It is listed as a car, but it tilts like a bike. I think this is one vehicle that falls in the same category as the Carver (which still isn’t available in the US and won’t be until late/end of 2009). The Smera has four wheels and a roof so it sounds a lot like a car, but it still has that tilting thing which is very bike like. Well, no matter how confusing it may be to define a category for it - I still think it is pretty cool. It is electric (which is very nice with gas prices being what they are); it goes up to 80 miles per hour; and it can go up to 93 miles on a single charge. The car is still in concept, so don’t hold your breath on ever seeing it in the US. This cute little car might even give the smart car a run for the money.
Since the announcement of the 3G iPhone has come and gone (during which Steve Jobs referred to the EDGE version as ” the old iPhone”), you probably need to know what to do with your now obsolete piece of Apple equipment. So I thought I would give you a little help by making a list (in no particular order):
Sell it before word gets out to the world that a new version is coming out. As an early adopter, you will never be able to re-coupe what you originally paid for it. Although you might be able to get a couple of bucks for it if you throw in the $30 case.
Incorporate your phone into the next biggest work of art. I think smashing it first would allow you to use the most real estate on a canvas. Thereby allowing you to fill the positive space and leave the negative space to brood about being obsolete.
Take out a 20 year lease on a safety deposit box. Place the iPhone lovingly back into the original box. Make sure to include every single piece of plastic wrapping that came with it or it won’t be worth it. Place the iPhone into the safety deposit box. Close and lock the door to the safety deposit box. Wait 20 years (who knows it may be worth something someday).
Give it as a tip for your favorite server at the local diner. It feels nice to help out others. Although they probably have the new 3G version already because they are cooler than you are.
Use your old iPhone as an Etch-a-Sketch for your 3-year old. Download and install the Sketches application. Since you are no longer worried about having a working piece of new technology (remember you are now the proud owner of an antique) - you can jailbreak it without worrying about it.
Demote it to iPod status. Load it up with the heaviest beat playlist or two that you can come up with. Then promote it to OhMiBod accessory use.
Place the old iPhone under the leg of your 3-legged table that leans over just a little too far to the left. After all the money you spent on it you should at least get some good use out of the darn thing.
The unique aerodynamics of your old iPhone would make it a nice skipping stone on the water. You can go to the nearest lake and contemplate why exactly you torture yourself by payibng through the nose for bleeding edge products - only to have them rendered obsolete less than 1 year later.
You are the most hip and cool geek out there. You must have the latest technology only. You cannot be seen at the next Star Trek convention sporting anything over a year old. It is now so obsolete that you don’t care what happens to it as long as it is removed from your site!
