Play My Cards Right

Providing an iBook title is available on Kindle or B&n, there is absolutely no reason to do so through Apple. Hell it might even be worth paying extra for the competitor’s, just for the ability to read it on multiple platforms. A color LCD and snappy page turning animations aren’t enough.

Suddenly its been a few weeks since I posted anything, so consider this a return.  I went to an amazing wedding at the end of April, and had the opportunity to spend some much needed time with family.

I updated my PBT today and realized that I’ve only read one book so far this year.  I’m not particularly upset about it but it was surprising.  In related news, we scored some tickets to see Anthony Bourdain speak when he comes to Pittsburgh in June.

Lots coming up- family gatherings, playdates, weddings and birthdays and about six weeks from now we’ll be introducing Max to the ocean.  Assuming it isn’t completely destroyed by then.

I know I’m getting old but goddamn it if every time I try to play this remake of a game that was never even released in the US I barely make it to the second stage before I throw the PSP off the bus.  Maybe this is why I play RPGs so much- they don’t require the dexterity and willingness for torture that a game like this demands.  Indeed this is what most games demanded back in the day.  RPGs, especially the old school Japanese variety I’ve been playing lately feel like a walk in the park, repetitive, simple gameplay and a sense of progression whose only requirement is your time.  Of course back then I was more than happy to use a cheat or code I picked up in Nintendo Power, these days I have some kind of purist mentality that demands I avoid gamefaqs unless absolutely necessary.  Absolutely necessary should not be before I reach the end of the second stage.  And what is the deal with hiding the aspects of this game that i actually want- Castlevania- Symphony of the Night and the original Dracula X ROM- within the game itself?  This one is heading right up to the unfun category.

Tonight was date night and we had a chance to visit Bistro 19 in Mt. Lebanon.  To sum it up, upscale suburban?  The menu was decent enough but there seems to be no real focus.  Some chicken, some veal, some fish, a …southwestern barbecue salad?  We split a pear and plum salad that had candied walnuts and blue cheese and it was pretty good, though I would have liked a bit of oil and vinegar to sop up with the dry bread they gave us.  My almond chicken with brie sauce and risotto was quite good, but came with the saltiest side of spinach I’ve ever eaten.  Dawn had the Bistro burger, which was a decent size and overall a nice burger.  Wine doesn’t really interest us and that is one of their pitches so I guess we can’t say we have a complete picture.  For the price, I can’t say it was completely worth it.

I may have been complaining a bit last week about how hard things are with Max, but honestly whatever little problems we have with him are so tiny compared to the joy he fills us with every day.  He is a miracle and a joy to be around and at the end of the day when I am totally beat I can’t wait to ride home and run in the door so our little family can share some time.  I am the luckiest person in the world.

If Final Fantasy XIII were named Ultimate Illiad and made by a company that wasn’t Square Enix, it would not have been reviewed nearly as well as it has, nor would it be as controversial as it has.  Unfortunately, I’ll never find out whether all of the Internet Rage is justified.  After reading Christian Nutt’s sprawling review, I’ve decided I’m not going to play it.  Parts of the review cover game mechanics I literally can not comprehend.  And if said mechanics make up a battle system that many claim is the games one good aspect, I’m done.  The story seems to be meandering and hard to digest.  If those two things aren’t worth the effort in an RPG, then the game simply is not worth what limited time I have.

Seems to me to be as much about music period as New Orleans or its music alone. Beautiful so far.

Not that I really need to pitch into this bloodbath of a conversation, but I just wanted to share a thought on the iPhone and Flash:

No matter how well optimized Flash could ever possibly be on the iPhone, it would always offer a substandard experience with the slightly possible exception of video playback. And while Flash playback is important, it is also obviously becoming less so with HTML5 video players quickly picking up the slack.

The big problem comes with all the other things users expect and experience from Flash on the Desktop. You’ve got games, you’ve got banner ads, you’ve got entire sites designed in flash (when they really should be HTML). These Flash movies are almost always designed for a specific desktop size or higher, be it 800×600 or 1024×768. Many of them allow you to right click. They all ultimately expect you to be interfacing with a mouse and keyboard easily at the ready. At best you’re going to get a mix-and-max of sub-standard to downright awful browsing experiences. One could even argue that Apple got full web browsing so right on Mobile Safari by ignoring Flash completely.

At best a Flash designer could possibly create two versions of the Flash interface: one Desktop, one “mobile.” And then of course you’d be designing for every potential Flash enabled phone out there, regardless of speed, screen size, or interface.

Whether you chose to write your Flash for the desktop or you chose to “optimize” for mobile, if you targeted both at any point you are now providing a lowest-common-denominator, feature incomplete interface that will likely not look or interact as well as versions specifically designed for Desktop or mobile. So let Flash be Flash, a time wasting game interface and the bane of mobile users searching for restaurant menus everywhere. The iPhone doesn’t need it, and if it had it it would be worse for it.

Lest anyone think Apple is in some way benevolent:

• Quick and easy to use Ad Network built into OS
• Forced upgrade path for those users who wish to take care of new features
  • Said new features already implemented on jailbroken iphones
  • Your not-yet-two year old phone will be obsolete when OS 4 comes out, just in time to re-up your AT&T contract
• Blocking 3rd party application frameworks like Flash and Unity
• Openness leads to pornography?

Finally visited Mr. Smalls “Funhouse” to see my brother play with the Cobbs tonight.  Their set was pretty damn fantastic- it’s kind of great to see a band play a tight, short set, full of dynamics and really conscious of their sound.

Smalls is your typical mediam sized rock club, kinda dingy but not gross, built into an old church.  The weird part is that it is literally in the middle of a very residential neighborhood in Millvale, but I guess they have good soundproofing.  It is extremely rare that a band I like plays there, so I doubt I’ll be back any time soon.  Interesting experience anyway.

Take that phrase as you will, here it is.

I’ve fought very hard to keep my workouts to the morning.  I used to relish getting up at 5 and doing some pushups, situps and yoga before going on a 10 mile run.  These days I’m lucky if I’m out of bed at 7, and still not well rested.  So I’ve moved my workouts to evening, something I’d hoped never to do- I feel like I’m taking time out of my life at this point, but at this point I’m losing the battle, so its got to be done.

Dawn still being married to me after being in the same room as me while I listened to the Game Collecting episode of Retronauts.

Dawn and I are ubiquitous computer users: our laptops are always sitting along the periphery of our lives.  They come out too look up a quick reference, or to read the days news.  We download our baby pictures on them and share those pictures with family through them.  We do our work on them and we relax on them.  They come into the kitchen with us when we need a quick recipe reference.  It goes without saying that we watch video and listen to music on them as well.

The problem, and honestly this wasn’t much of a problem until now, is that they are rather bulky.

The netbook was supposed to be the solution to the bulkiness of a “full sized” laptop.  Early adds for the EEE series of laptops featured a rather unrealistic image of a woman sitting on a beach, computing her heart out on the toy-like EEE.  But as we’ve seen the netbook evolve from a tiny keyboard, tiny screen computer to a more or less full sized but underpowered laptop.  This evolution speaks to the problem of netbooks:  A tiny form factor and tiny screen don’t mean much if the way you use them is the same as on a full sized computer.  The squinting and key-hunting become more a burden quickly.

The potential of the iPad is that it takes the small-form factor and makes it true.  This is a device you will take to the beach, into the kitchen and undoubtedly into the bathroom.  Gestures and quick magnification will make using it second nature, and unlike Microsoft’s ultimately failed Tablet PC, the fact that the machine’s operating system was built from the ground up with this form factor in mind will mean that this time it will work.  The stripped down feature set and relatively powerful processor mean that not only can we watch high quality video but we’ll likely be able to edit it to some degree as well.  The same goes for music.

The funny thing is that I thought that all of this was what made the iPhone special, but it was not enough to take the laptop out of the equation, and the reason was that the iPhone is simply too small.

Low impact lifestyle computing is what the Netbook promised; its what the iPad will actually deliver.

Sooooooo we tried to go out to dinner with Max tonight. For the first time, just Mom and Dad and Baby went out to El Campesino and we assumed, incorrectly, that Max would be well behaved.  Usually when we eat dinner we keep him occupied with a biscuit and some toys and he’ll keep more or less quiet while we quickly scarf down our food.  And usually when we go out for whatever reason he is too distracted to get upset.  Perhaps because it was just the three of us tonight, or perhaps he’s grown out of it, he basically started yelling as soon as we stopped paying attention to him.  I vowed not to be “that family” that brings out a whiney baby to dinner and keeps everyone else from enjoying their meal, but tonight I broke that vow.  Thankfully it was good friday and the place was basically empty.  Maybe we’ll wait a few more years.

At this point I can hardly think. My mom is coming this weekend and I’ll be more than happy to pass Max off for a few hours. Maybe Dawn and I can actually go out someplace nice.

Nothing beats a night of carrying out furniture for bulk trash pickup like a little homemade Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Chip.