JohnA lifeBlog

Yes.  I am a nerd.  Today, I am proud to annouce that I am the proud owner of not only a Toshiba HD-DVD player, but a 60GB Playstation 3.   As most of you know, I simply refuse to play console games.  Indeed, tonight’s review is between the previous favorite HD-A1, and the new kid in town, the Playstation3 60GB.

Before we begin, some background is in order.  I had purchased the Toshiba player almost 7 months before it was shippped from Amazon.  They offered excuse after excuse. Fast forward to today.

I went to my local target, and they had 8 60GB units in stock.   I told the salesperson that I only wanted to use it as a Blu-Ray player, and his recommendation was that I wait a few weeks, as the PS3 seemed to break down regularly.  I really did appreciate his candor.  He was open and honest. something oft forgotten.

Saw that my friend Betsy had taken this, so I thought I’d try it out myself.

So, I’m back from Vegas. I had a great time visiting my bro and his fam, as well as going to the various Vegas attractions. Oh yeah, apparently there was some kind of tech show in town…

I stayed with Ethan at the Excalibur. Compared to The Sahara, it was like the greatest hotel in history. Compared to the other places I’ve stayed on the Strip, it was seriously sub-par.

To be honest, the best time I had during the entire trip was Saturday night, when we spent the entire night downtown at the Fremont Street experience. I drank super-tall daiquiri after daiquiri. We dined on 4 star cuisine such as deep fried oreo cookies and deep fried twinkies.

While downtown, we played single-deck blackjack with the dregs of society. I won $100 or so, all the time drinking from my 3 foot tall daquiri glass.

The next evening, Ethan & Missy went to see Spamalot, but unfortuatenly Ethan didn’t enjoy it. I chose not to go as I wanted it to be a special “date night” for them. Lucky me. I saved like $99 dollars… more to spend in the slots! Although, since I did have dinner at Sir Galahad’s, I don’t know how much money I really saved. I did manage to get a free $10 dessert… ask me how!

Anyway, I am Vegas’ed out… I can only handle the “experience” once every six months, at the most. NAB 2008 seems to be the perfect opportunity to regroup.

At least I didn’t try to hit on a cocktail waitress…. oh wait…. did I?

So, as many of you know, I love woot.com. As of this posting, I have ordered over 60 98 distinct woots! Most of them I didn’t need, i was just getting SUCH a great price. And I enjoyed the fun and pageantry of the whole thing.

Which brings me back to reality. The woot team posted this blog entry showing their new digs. A forum member did a fly by, which put their 200,000 sq feet into perspective.

I love woot.com, but it’s pretty obvious that this is their “Jump the Shark” moment. If webvan is any kind of guide, these friends have chosen to “upgrade” far too early. I don’t care how successful you are, the moment you place your logo on a 200,000 sq foot facility is the start of your demise.

I really hope I am wrong. But in my heart? I know I am right.

As many of you know, I was pretty much bred to be a computer programmer. You probably know that I cut my teeth on the greatest computer ever devised, the Commodore 64. And yes, while that was the computer with which I worshiped Jim Butterfield, it wasn’t until I had my own 386 clone that I found my true calling. Alas, it never happened for me, but thanks to the Interwebs powered by Sen. Steven’s tubes, I can relive my true calling.

For the non-Nerds in the audience, there exists a computer sub-culture called the demoscene. This culture is devoted to squeezing out every single ounce of ability from largely sub-par computer hardware.

Anyway, the greatest demoscene of all time is a project named Second Reality. I ran it today on DosBox, and forgot how impressed I was. Even now, I see how amazing it is. Thankfully, a person more talented than me put a video up on YouTube.

Click here to see the ultimate demoscene presentation.

Honestly, I miss the creativity that comes from a severely limited platform. I mean, what is the challenge when writing software that targets a 3ghz/2gb “workstation”

I really am proud of my heritage, as it taught me to understand limited resources in the perspective of unlimited ideas.

My super-cool friend Matt sent me this video.

Click here to view the video

I am so happy for him, but seeing videos like this remind me that I LONG for a family of my own.

Anyway, it’s a great video to watch.