This weekend, Jenn and I picked up the new dual-tuner TiVo, meaning I’ll never miss “My Name is Earl” for any show starring Geena Davis again.
Other than the TiVo button on the remote being further in than our previous unit, which I’m sure I’ll get used to shortly, it’s a great little unit, and does indeed record two shows at the same time (“Rock Star: Supernova” and the finale of “Last Comic Standing” this week … don’t judge me!).
But has anyone noticed if these units run hot? The new/inherited TV cabinet that our TV, DVD player and TiVo live in was getting quite toasty this morning until I opened the cabinet up to let it air out.
My PC is facing the same sort of thing, it seems — the motherboard apparently has burned out, which is as major of a problem as the transmission going in your car — and I’m a little jumpy about such issues.
OK, so it’s a pretty simple pet. Still, I can no longer say that nothing good ever came out of MySpace.
The cult of the iPod gobbles up Detroit:
Ford, for example, will be incorporating audio input jacks compatible with the iPod and other MP3 players into a majority of 2007 Ford, Lincoln and Mercury models. For an additional price, beginning early next year, Ford dealers plan to begin selling a system called TripTunes Advanced that will enable an iPod to be stored and recharged in a vehicle’s glove compartment while the driver or passenger directs its functions using controls on the radio or steering wheel.
So, not only could I satisfy my inner 10-year-old (who loved his little yellow Mustang Hot Wheels car), but I could satisfy my (not-so) secret technolust.
Evil, evil, evil.
The Koboldnomicon has gotten 4/4 for both style and substance at RPG.net:
As I read this PDF, two things occurred to me. One, I have not been using my kobolds to their fullest potential. Two, there are some people out there with some serious, serious issues. And apparently many of them were involved in putting together this fun, campy, and slightly demented product.
After 12 years of increasingly noisy and flashy trade shows, E3 is rebooting as a smaller show, based on small groups in small rooms. Blizzard has previously done this sort of thing at the Tokyo Game Show and elsewhere, to good effect.
Honestly, I think this is a good idea. E3, the years I worked it, was ear-shattering, throat-destroying and wasn’t particularly kind to one’s feet, either. And it was all to get publicity that, frankly, Blizzard could get elsewhere, like at Blizzcon. (There apparently won’t be a Blizzcon this year, alas, but hopefully we’ll see one next year.) And Blizzard isn’t the only company doing its own conventions and press events.
For smaller companies that don’t have the capital or the cachet to draw in crowds to that sort of event, I honestly think few companies are doing a good job of using the Internet to generate hype. Companies need to do more than just set up e-mail interviews with a few gaming news sites and wait for the world to come calling. Game trailers should be distributed to video sharing sites, screenshots should be made available for the whole world via photo-sharing sites, podcasts should be set up where the lead producers talk about their vision for the game in bite-sized increments and more.
I have no idea if Blizzard will be participating in the new, smaller E3 shows. I imagine they will be, but such shows are almost incidental to their success now, in my opinion, although their absence from one might be so distracting and create so many confused impressions, they might have to go anyway.
I do know that the Blizzard PR crew, and the developers pulled out of Irvine to demo for the media, will come back to work without the ringing ears and hoarse voices that were a given in past years.
I shed no tears for the E3 that was.
