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

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?

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!

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.

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. Good luck out there if you’re doing any Christmas shopping.

Also, if you haven’t noticed, some new games were added to the Shopping Channel at the beginning of a week. The big news is that they are the first games for a brand new platform of games available for the Wii: NeoGeo. The first released games are all classic arcade style fighters which NeoGeo was famous for. I’m looking forward to many more NeoGeo games coming to the Wii. Also, a few weeks ago we also started to see imports pop in the channel, including the Super Mario Bros. 2 that was released in Japan (known as the Lost Levels in the U.S.) in all of it’s original 8-bit glory, and an arcade style Japanese Shooter called Sin & Punishment for the (I believe) Super Famicom.

Most of the games weren’t worth a second look, of course, but there was one I ended up picking up figuring it might be worth my $10. It was “The Pac-Man Collection”, which contains the original Pac Man as well as a couple slightly more modern variations of the game (“Pac-Mania” and “Pac Man Arrangement”) as well as a Tetris-like puzzle game (“Pac Attack”).

I took it home and broke it out, and was surprised with how much I actually enjoyed playing this old and simple game. When I really concentrated on playing it, it continually kept me on my toes, especially when I went up a few levels. For the first time, I think I finally understood how this game could’ve been such a phenomenon when it first came out in the early 80s. It demands your constant attention, and there’s lots of on the fly strategy involved, because you pretty much had to keep moving and your situation was constantly changing. Do you compromise the main task of completing the maze just to go for the extra-point goodness of the fruit in the middle of the maze? Should you go for the power pellet NOW? Should you save it for when you’re in a bind or have an opportunity to nab as many ghosts as possible?

I always liked the game and appreciated its importance to video game history, but I think for some reason, it has only now just really clicked with me. I finally understood the game’s nuances and why people still enjoy playing it today. I don’t think it’s too far fetched to say that it is similar to classic games like chess or checkers in that way: its strength lies in its few but crucial rules and simple goals, but it is open enough so that it’s often not obvious what the best next course of action is. Quite a few other video games do this, sure, but I don’t think any distills the concept so purely as Pac-Man does.

Here’s a monologue he did where he forsakes his usual schtick and talks about the media’s obsession with the falling of celebrities and relating it to his own battle with alcoholism. Good stuff.

Your pie is in the beer fridge. You owe me $22. – Hung

That’s a real note I wrote on a Post-It today.

How about iPods?

Don’t expect much. There are one or two in each store that generally know more then you’d expect. But they are also only getting paid $10 / hr. If you want great service, It helps to have boobs. I’m not joking.

Have a good Friday, everyone.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl

Metal Gear fans rejoice.

It looks like enough people agree.

“Goodness gracious,”
My grandma used to say.
“The world’s a scary place now, things were different in my day.”
What horrors might be commonplace,
When my hair starts to grey?

- Kevin Gilbert

Some of you have probably heard by now that Apple has announced “Boot Camp”, a piece of software that will allow you to have dual-boot capability on the new Intel-based Macs so that you can run Windows on it. This is, of course, a big deal.

One would wonder why Apple would allow their competitor’s OS to run on their normally incompatible hardware and allow them to expand into their systems. Then it occurred to me…the software only allows you to dual-boot in Windows, not take over the machine with Windows. That means two things:

1. Regular Macintosh enthusiasts can install Windows on a small portion of their drive and run any Windows programs they need that does not yet exist for the Macintosh. This also means you can finally run a boatload of games on the Macintosh hardware. Enthusiast have an added convenience and it opens up the market to avid gamers.
2. Even if the user is initally mainly interested in running Windows on it, the fact is that the MacOS is still there and is the dominant OS. That means that more people will be exposed and have access to the MacOS to some degree. Particularly if people are curious, they may try using it for a while, find that they really like it (it is, in fact, a very nice GUI) and may progressively switch over to using it as their main OS.

I think Apple knows what it’s doing.

If you have one of these new beasts, you can download the public beta of the software here. I’ve actually been kicking around the idea of purchasing a Mini for some time now, even before they were using the Intel processors. I just recently acquired a new line of credit, so it may be happening fairly soon.

Pretty amusing to me.