…and the results have been less than optimal. Read this story (and more) on Global Nerdy.
Category: It Happened to Me
Categories
XBox 360: Day One
Mmmm…Zombie-killin’ time!
Last night, before heading home, I went to Blockbuster to rent a couple of games on which to give my new XBox 360 a test run.
“Get something fun for me,” said the Ginger Ninja. This was going to be difficult, as the 360 seems to be the console that pays the least attention to the casual gamer and especially women. If there ain’t killin’, adventurin’ or scorin’ goals on the opposin’ team, the pickings are slim. As a person who thinks of himself as a “fair play” sort of guy but who also likes killin’ and adventurin’ games, I often find myself going back and forth between the attitudes of:
- It’s a shame that game manufacturers have no idea of how to write games that appeal to women
- I’m not responsible for your gender’s lame-o Gilmore Girls lifestyle choices, sister!
The nearby blockbuster was out of the disc featuring Bejeweled 2, so I picked the Open Season game for Wendy.
For me, based on what I’d heard and the comments in this entry, I got the stuck-in-a-shopping-mall thriller Dead Rising. I had myself a grand old time killing zombies with two-by-fours, garbage cans, the unexpectedly powerful flat-screen TV, baseball bats and my current favourite: the lawnmower. Nothing kills masses of suburban undead like a bad attitude and a gassed-up John Deere.
Alas, since mine is a Core System rather than the Full System, it doesn’t come with the hard drive (I can’t complain, I got it for free and I can upgrade). Without a hard drive or a memory card, any time I get killed in Dead Rising, I have to start over from the beginning, which makes the box nearly useless. I’d like to know two things:
- If I get the hard drive, is there any point to getting a memory card?
- Can I any old USB storage device — say a USB key or iPod — to save games and XBox gamer profiles?
Categories
James Duncan Davidson and Me
The gentleman pictured below is James Duncan Davidson. He’s often seen at conferences where the subject matter can be classified as “Web 2.0”, where’s he’s easy to find: just look for the friendly, smiling redheaded dude with the mega-phallic camera lens. Here he is taking pictures of a panel session at the Ajax Experience:
In addition to fast becoming the Annie Leibovitz of the Web 2.0 set, James is also a programmer of note. The trivia question that led to my winning the XBox was “The man with the camera in the front row is well-known in the Java community. In the Java world, what’s he known for?”
I raised my hand first, so I got picked. For a moment, I was tempted to say “He’s known in Java world for defecting to Ruby!“
Sensing that the answer, accurate as it was, would not be accepted, I gave them the answer “He’s known for making ‘Ant‘. The build tool.”
Ben Galbraith, one of the conference organizers and a judge at the trivia contest, looked a little uneasy. “I was thinking of something else, but I think that’s right…
“Oh yeah,” I said, thinking quickly, “…and Tomcat.” Although I’m not really a Java guy, I’ve used Ant many a time, but never Tomcat, so it’s a little off my radar.
Okay, then. You win the XBox 360!
So I tip my hat to Duncan, for playing a role in my shiny new XBox 360.
I also have to thank him for taking this lovely picture of me playing accordion at the Ajax Experience party on Tuesday night. I love this photo: it says “this guy enjoys life.” Mondo thanks, Duncan!
Click the photo to see it on its Flickr page.
Categories
XBox 360 Game Recommendations?
As you may have read, I won an XBox 360 core system in a trivia game at the Ajax Experience yesterday (I knew that learning Java development trivia would come in handy someday!).
If you’ve got XBox 360 games that you love, recommend them to me in the comments! I prefer the shootin’, killin’ and adventurin’ games to the sports stuff, and I also like music-based games.
Categories
Look Before You Poop
Perhaps I’ve become a bit too comfortable in Logan International Airport’s Terminal C.
Terminal C is the terminal I use most often, after the ones in Toronto. Of the airlines that have regular Toronto-Boston routes, Air Canada is probably the best option, both price- and comfort-wise. They tend to use larger and more comfortable jets than the next-best option, American Eagle, and they use Terminal C, which has better restaurants and stores and more available power outlets than Terminal B. It’s also where the Logan branch of Legal Sea Foods, home of some very good “chowdah”, is located.
Yesterday afternoon, I took Brent Ashley to Legal for some chowder and calamari, to thank him for giving me a free pass to the Ajax Experience conference. The “Thai Style” calamari is pretty nice, with its spicy pineapple-and-peanut sauce, but let’s face it: it’s seriously deep-fried and greasily travels through your system like Mario Andretti down a straightaway. Needless to say, I felt nature’s rather urgent call while waiting at the gate and asked Brent to keep an eye on my stuff while I beelined for the bathroom.
I’ve used the bathroom at Terminal C dozens of times, so I navigated my way there on auto-pilot. I saw a set of open stalls, picked one and went about my business.
As I was finishing up, I noticed that the voices of the guys in the room were a little…weird.
That’s when I realized that I’d just taken a crap in the women’s room.
A plane must’ve just landed, because the bathroom got very full. I decided that right then would be a very bad time to emerge from the stall; better by far to wait for a lull. The last thing I needed was a room full of women who might be under the mistaken impression that I was some kind of Japanese toilet pervert who got his jollies listening to women using the bathroom.
I even briefly considered tossing my black blazer over my head in the hopes that it would hide my bearded face and perhaps even fool casual onlookers into thinking I was wearing some kind of chador. Hey, I’ve had stupider ideas.
A few minutes later, I got the lull I was waiting for. I opened the stall door and set a quick but not overly hurried path for the door and crossed the hall into the men’s washroom, where I washed my hands.
Note to self: Look before you poop.
(By the bye, the women’s washroom at Logan is just as poorly-maintained as the men’s.)
Categories
The Swag Report, Part 2
Over at Global Nerdy, I’ve filed part two of my report on the dot-com-bubble-esque swag and prizes being given away by the vendors and organizers at the Ajax Experience conference. Check it out!
Categories
The Swag Report, Part 1
The goodies that they’re giving away at the Ajax Experience conference are pretty sweet — they’re almost at dot-com bubble levels. I’ve got the first part of my swag report over at Global Nerdy.