nook: not a gadget

March 4th, 2010 § 6

Disclaimer: No, I don’t get any money from Barnes and Noble or anyone else for touting the nook. I spend most of my time giving money to them in exchange for still more books.

I wasn’t planning on writing a post about my nook for two reasons: first, I kinda already did with my rant about the iPad, and second, I think I’ve established my love for it such that anyone who reads this blog will not need reminded.

But then I saw the need.

I was explaining the nook (The people at B&N, for reasons entirely their own, do not capitalize “nook”…hence the title of this post, as capitalizing just the other words gave me nightmares.) to a friend over the phone who knew that I recommended it, when she stopped me with this statement:

“Yes, but you know, you’ve always been more of a gadget person than I am.”

I blinked. I very nearly dropped my phone. Of course the above statement is a correct one – I am a gadget person – however there was one glaring error.

The nook is not a gadget. » Read the rest of this entry «

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Why You Should Play Dragon Age. Again.

February 4th, 2010 § 0

I am somewhat slow to complete video games, as a general rule.

For example, I finished Portal, for the first time, a few months ago. Portal was first released in 2004. It was a relief to finally understand all the cake jokes, although I did identify with this a little too much.

Many games I simply leave unfinished. I played FF X-2 to within probably 4 hours of 100% completion, got to a part I didn’t like and just stopped. The reason for this is simple – I play video games because I enjoy the story. More often than not, the actual gameplay tends to bore and annoy me after mere hours. Expressed in a simple equation:

desire to see how the story turns out < amount of suffering from actually playing the game = point I turn off the game system

This also explains why I consider watching my husband play through a game as essentially the same thing as me playing through it.

So when I tell you that I have completed Dragon Age:Origins three times, one of which I actually held the controller for the entire time, and that I and my husband have additionally started five more characters and logged well over 200 hours of gameplay, you can surmise the following:

Damn. Good. Game. » Read the rest of this entry «

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Dear Apple: Please Explain?

January 28th, 2010 § 4

Dear Apple,

First of all, thank you for the new product, and thus the new world of fun blogs for me to pursue and stupid people on the internet (ie anyone who doesn’t agree with me) for me to laugh at. Also, thank you for calling it the “iPad”, because, like the Wii before it, that name means several months of joy ahead for the world.

Now, I admit I’m new to your company as a customer. My dad once worked for IBM and, as I’m fond of saying, my family was barely allowed to eat apples when I was growing up. Indeed, I’m a strong proponent of open source software, and my main computers are generally running some form of Linux. However, I love my iPhone. Granted, I jailbreak mine, but that’s just what I do to gadgets I love. I love it so much that I bought one for my mom, and she loves it so much that every time I talk to her her first question is “Any new apps I should know about?” And she’s had it for a year. I even took the plunge and bought a Mac Book Pro for our new laptop, and I have to say I enjoy using it. It fills a need.

So when you said you were coming out with a tablet, I was excited. I figured if anyone could do a tablet correctly, it would be you. I did not expect it to be perfect, and I assumed that I would need to modify it some to fit my own geeky needs, but that’s a given with most new gadgets. I, like many people yesterday, looked into the footage, read the live blogs, and examined the specs, pics and video. I believe I have absorbed everything you’ve given us about this new device, the iPad. I just have one question for you.

What is it for? » Read the rest of this entry «

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