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The changing of the Presidents can be jarring, especially after you’ve had the same one for two terms. It’s a bit like what happens immediately after the New Year when you keep writing “2008″ on your checks on accident for a while even though it’s 2009, except like ten times worst. You have to remind yourself to follow the word President with “Obama” instead of “Bush”. Also, you have to remember that the phrase “The President” refers to that young Democrat that everyone seems to like, as opposed to that neoconservative Texan that everyone seems to…not.

That is my thought on the changes we face as a nation as of January 20, 2008.

Tags: politics

Someone who flies more often than me (which is probably everybody) please explain this to me.

If I fly from Austin to X with a nearly three hour layover in Dallas, it could cost me $y. However, if I want to simply drive to Dallas and take the plane from there to X, they want to charge me $y + 100. How does that make any business sense for them to charge me more for using their service less?

Also, if I take the flight with the one stop, is there something against the rules about just going to Dallas and boarding the second flight without taking the first one?

Tags: planes

I think I’ve always been selective about what I put on here because I wanted to be careful to not put up anything that no-one would care about. However, clearly that hasn’t worked since I usually get so worked up over certain music-related things that I feel like I have to put them up, and clearly that’s not made to appeal to you, so it seems like a silly rule to keep. So I am hereby excusing myself from any such discretion. You have been warned.

According to this article, Rock Band will be available for the Wii on June 22. However, at this time, it seems likely that both online play and downloadable content will not be likely. Hopefully, they will be able to work these things in anyways.

On the upside, getting a PS3 seems to become a likely path for me now that Blu-Ray is more or less the de-facto standard for hi-definition discs. That, and the new live Genesis release will be available on Blu-Ray as well. So maybe I’ll hold out and get Rock Band for that instead. Except that my TV doesn’t handle HDMI, and I don’t know if a DVI adapter will solve the issue…

Minor update: my connection is HDCP enabled, so an adapter WILL work. Woohoo!

Tags: rockband, videogames, wii

I’m taking a break from my (not particularly) busy schedule to let you guys know that King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters came out on DVD today. The movie is a documentary that follows a guy named Steve Weibe in his quest to attain the world record for highest score in Donkey Kong by beating out the long time high score holder Billy Mitchell. I am by no means a movie buff, but I went out to see this movie because it got really good word of mouth review and it certainly appealed to my geeky side. However, I was surprised with how good this movie truly was.

Even though the subject matter might seem off-putting to anyone who isn’t a video game nerd, and admittedly part of the humor involves the other-worldly passions of competitive video gamers, the movie in the end is truly about someone trying to prove himself in the face of rivals willing to do anything to defend their pride. It’s like Rocky, except with Donkey Kong instead of boxing. If you don’t believe me, perhaps you would instead believe the overwhelming critical acclaim it has received. It currently scores a 96% at Rotten Tomatoes (the DVD box says 99%, but close enough) and 8.5/10 in IMDB ratings, so it certainly shows that it has wide appeal.

Next time you decide to rent a movie, you should certainly check this out.

Tags: movies, videogames