Happy Thanksgiving!

I’d like to wish a happy Thanksgiving to all my of American readers! I hope you have family or friends to celebrate with, and still find plenty of things to be thankful for in these rather difficult times.

Europeans might find it hard to understand what all the fuss is about. When I first arrived in America, I didn’t appreciate how momentous this holiday is. So let’s just cover a few basics: Thanksgiving is bigger than Christmas. Everybody tries to celebrate this holiday with their family – and because America is such a big country, that means a lot of travel. In Germany, I was used to the idea that you can get pretty much anywhere by car in a matter of 8 hours. In the US, it takes 5 hours by plane to go between the east and west coast. On Thanksgiving the roads are packed, and the airports are busy.

But really, the best way to understand the magnitude of Thanksgiving is to be single, without a family in the US, and trying to do anything on Thanksgiving evening. Like me when I first got to America. Thanksgiving might be the only day of the year that America shuts down. No stores are open, no restaurants (or even fast food chains) serve food to the unprepared newcomer. Xmas is a walk in the park compared to Thanksgiving.

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Silent Reviews

Kung Fu Panda (DVD) – Yes
Star Trek XI Trailer -  Maybe
Wall•E (Blu-ray) – Yes
Playstation Home – Maybe
Bailout for US Auto Makers – No

I stole the format from Charlie’s page, which is currently in reconstruction mode (so I can’t link to his previous Silent Reviews). I’ll probably do one every Monday, to quickly comment on any media and events that didn’t warrant a full post.

Finish The Sentence

Early Sunday morning, with the 49ers – Cowboys game playing in the background. Good time to catch up on a post that Victoria made last September.

I AM … currently trying to do three things at once.
I WANT… Americans to realize that not politicians, but hard work and responsibility will end the economic crisis.
I HAVE … finally caught up on sleep. I think.
I KEEP … finding new projects before I’m finished with old ones.
I WISH I COULD … relax more on weekends.
I HATE … drivers who slow down as soon as they see a cop at the side of the road, even though they were going the speed limit.
I FEAR … people who think that Sarah Palin is the future of the Republican party.
I HEAR … Victoria talking to my parents on the phone.
I DON’T THINK … it’s close to Christmas yet, no matter how much corporate America wants us to believe it.
I REGRET … not blowing up Megaton in Fallout 3.
I LOVE … exploring the area with Victoria.
I AM NOT … going to watch Quantum Of Solace.
I DANCE … whenever Victoria grabs me.
I SING … in the car.
I NEVER … lose hope.
I RARELY … laugh during movies that I find funny.
I CRY WHEN I WATCH … the ending of “The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill”.
I AM NOT ALWAYS … sure we will be able to afford a house this year.
I HATE THAT … responsible people are caught in the mess that irresponsible bankers and home buyers created for us.
I’M CONFUSED ABOUT … wildly varying Feedburner subscriber stats.
I NEED … to feed the birds.
I SHOULD … finish my Quake level.

This isn’t one of those chain letter type posts, but if you’re reading this and have a blog, you should do your own version and let us know!

Impressions From Maui, Part 2

To round out the vacation, here’s a few additional nice pictures from our Maui trip. Looking back at it now and comparing the experience to Kauai last year, I liked Kauai a little bit better. But that’s personal preference, the more rural nature of Kauai just suits me better. Maui had a few touristy hotspots that were missing from Kauai, though. I think my ideal island (“Kaui”?) would be created by transplanting Lahaina onto Kauai.

The New XBox Experience

So here it is: Microsoft’s complete redesign of the Xbox 360 user interface. So far, my reaction has mostly been one of indifference. I don’t need the Avatars, and the card system that is used to navigate between menus isn’t any better or worse than the old blade setup. Streaming Netflix over the net might be nice, but it isn’t something I’m likely to use anytime soon. My backlog of DVDs and Blu-ray discs is too big to worry about renting new stuff. So, it seems like NXE is nothing to write home about, right? Yes… except for one single feature, which single-handedly justifies the upgrade: hard drive installation for games! I’m absolutely loving it. Sure, ultimately Microsoft is just fixing a 3 year old problem: their console is so incredibly loud during use (especially on stream-heavy games like Fallout and GTA) that you can always hear it humming in the background. To the point where I haven’t been able to play 360 games in my office.

In our house, we have both the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 hooked up to the big TV in the living room. But I have duplicate cables for the small TV in my office, as well. So if Victoria wants to watch something on the nice TV, I simply snatch the console and take it to my room. That always worked great with the PS3, which is very quiet. But the 360 was so loud that I could hardly hear the games’ music and dialog! Consider that I’m only sitting four feet away from the screen, as that smaller TV dictates. But now that I’ve installed Fallout 3 on the hard drive, the 360 is just as quiet as the PS3. And I can actually hear myself think!

So thank you for NXE, Microsoft. I’m just using one of your new features so far, but it’s heaven sent.

Impression From Maui

Who would have thought that Costco is the best travel agent for vacations to Hawaii? Last year, Victoria and I booked our honeymoon to the Grand Hyatt on Kauai and absolutely loved it. The same package was available this year, but we decided to try something different. After a bit of soul searching (Dominican Republic? Puerto Rico?), we settled on a similar deal for the Hyatt Regency on Maui. Similar deal from Costco, including a rental car and other amenities. It was fun! A few memories from the trip:

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WordPress For iPhone

Yesterday’s Fallout 3 post was completely written using the WordPress For iPhone app (as was this post). Curiously enough, I have better cellphone reception on remote Maui beaches than in my office back in Sonoma! Having this update ability through the iPhone is definitely cool. But writing that extensive article showed me that there’s still some serious shortcomings in the app. Here’s a few features that will make the beach blogging experience much better:

Copy & Paste Support
As I mentioned a while ago, I’m all over the place when writing longer, essay-style posts. Being able to copy & paste would make editing the text much easier. It’s currently impossible to move paragraphs, and the only way to change the structure of the post is to retype a whole section. Hardly ideal. Pasting hyperlinks isn’t possible, either! I had to write down each link first and manually add it to the post later.

Image Naming
Would you like to know the filename for that Fallout image? l-640-360-ef51-c6f9-685d-4cb7-8210-290be6fafa65.jpeg. Yep, I just typed that on the iPhone keyboard. Just like I manually added the “img scr” of that image to yesterday’s post (after copying the name to my notebook first). I have no idea if that’s the iPhone’s internal filename for the image, or just a weird checksum/hash produced by the WordPress app. Either way, it’s way too unwieldly – my 128bit wireless WEP key is less cryptic!
You’ll also notice that the first image in the post isn’t working, and I have no idea why! I cross-checked the links about five times, and they look identical. One works, one is broken. Obviously, copy & paste would once again be very helpful here.

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Now Playing: Fallout 3

When it comes to Bethesda’s big, open world RPGs, I have a predictable pattern: I will hopelessly fall for every other game that they release. When The Elder Scrolls: Arena was released in 1994, I was all over it. Then Daggerfall hit the streets, and I never got past the initial quests. Several years later I was hooked again, dedicating hundreds of hours to Morrowind; only to be left cold by the even grander follow-up, Oblivion. If this alternating outburst of enthusiasm sounds weird, there’s a simple reason for it: Bethesda’s games are so comprehensive that I can’t play more than one every few years. When Oblivion arrived to much fanfare, I found that I just hadn’t recovered enough from Morrowind; I was feeling like I was replaying the same game again. I knew how much I should have been loving Oblivion and actually bought it for all available platforms. But every time I stopped playing early on.

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Bands Missing From Rock Band

The Cure
Friday I’m In Love. Just Like Heaven. Love Cats… The Cure is cult, and there’s tons of classic Cure songs that I would kill to play. If you grew up in the 80s and 90s, you know what I mean!

Depeche Mode
Okay, so I’m a huge Depeche Mode fan. But really, can you imagine anybody who wouldn’t want to play Personal Jesus and Enjoy The Silence?

Genesis
Give me Congo, Mama and No Son Of Mine any day! While we’re at it, throw some of Peter Gabriel’s solo stuff in there!

Snapshot

Cyber-stalking aid, November 2008:

Enjoying… Six days in Maui.
Reading… The Phoenix Endangered (Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory). Simplistic, but decent beach reading.
Watching… Battlestar Galactica Season 3. Yes, I’m behind.
Playing… Fallout 3. Well, at least I would be if I was home. I’m addicted.
Dreading… Having to leave Maui.
Starting… Something new at work. That was the one bad thing about going on vacation this week, work is exciting right now!