TEN JACK TEN

Joystiq makes excuses for the PS3:

The PS3 is not, it’s fair to say, perfect. Yet it’s not the complete mess that some fanboys would have you believe, either.

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We’ve been playing Ridge Racer 7 online every day for the past three weeks, and largely without complaint. A few recurring problems have, however, started to sap our Ridge Spirit (whatever that is). For one thing, intermittent Bluetooth downtime suffered by the Sixaxis has led us drifting helplessly into track barriers.

So, the wireless controllers occasionally going dead during gameplay is a forgivable error?  All of a sudden, I’m glad I walked away from that PS3 I ran across last week.

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I can’t resist a good slam piece, and Mr. Will sent one out today on Virgina’s new senator, Jim Webb.  I’d already had my suspicions from a distance that he was a sanctimonious jerk, but Mr. Will nails him before he can even take the oath of office.

When — if ever — Webb grows weary of admiring his new grandeur as a “leader” who carefully calibrates the “symbolic things” he does to convey messages, he might consider this: In a republic, people decline to be led by leaders who are insufferably full of themselves.

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It’s the all-disappointment update!

Just read: Planet Simpson - Chris Turner (HATED IT)

In the CD player: The Dead 60’s - The Dead 60’s (only one good song) & Cracker - Greenland (a pale shadow of its former self)

In the PSP: Every Extend Extra (all flash, no depth at all)

Still dead: My damn Xbox 360 (you suck, Bill Gates)

The first priority of any politician is to stay in office, the second is to expand their power. Serving the interests of the electorate is probably around fourth or fifth, if it’s even that high on the list.

Nobody has any business drinking sugared sodas. A person can eliminate thousands of calories over the course of a lifetime simply by eliminating them from the diet.

Microsoft Word is the worst tool for writing on a PC that I have ever used.

If you want a console on launch day, you’d better pre-order.

Repeating a bad idea with more force and conviction doesn’t transform the idea into a good one.

A lot of low-fat products aren’t particularly worth it because they make up for the lost flavor with sugar or other sweeteners. After all, sugared soda pop is fat-free.

You shouldn’t say anything behind someone’s back that you wouldn’t say to their face. This can lead to saying some pretty blunt things to people’s faces.

People will try very hard to set themselves apart with their dress, language, and behavior, only to become very offended when they are treated differently.

Being an innovator is often less profitable than being the first guy to rip off the innovator.

We wouldn’t have problems with email spam or pop-up web ads if people would just stop responding to them. Thus, as is often the case, the problem is really stupid people.

In news that stuns absolutely nobody, neither Kid Rock nor Pamela Anderson appear suited to marriage:

The couple was married August 3, 2006. Earlier this month, Anderson suffered a miscarriage.

It looks like there was a rush to the courthouse. Kid Rock also filed divorce papers this morning, 53 minutes before her docs were stamped by the clerk.

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PC World has a feature on “The 13 Most Embarrassing Web Moments.”

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Hurricane season ends on Thursday, with far fewer storms than predicted.  There’s always next year for the doomsayers.

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The Onion’s AV Club interviews Steven Wright.

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What could you do if you didn’t have to sleep?  The stimulant modafinil lets people function up to 48 hours without “sleep debt.”

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This is the time of year that we take stock and reflect upon the things that we value. I am of course, thankful for my family, friends, and good fortune. But there’s one thing beyond those things that I find myself extremely thankful for this year:

That RuPaul no longer has any career to speak of.

I’m starting to become very tired of being run into by other drivers.

This time it was a Honda Accord, in the exact same place the last two cars hit me.  I haven’t even had the last damage repaired.  I have no idea what to do when someone whacks you in the same place some other person has already done damage.

I do have the utmost respect for whoever designed the Xterra’s rear bumper, though.  I seem to keep winning the collisions.

Used to be, TV shows would avoid episode-to-episode storylines, on the basis that they wouldn’t play well in syndication and it could alienate the audience.  Then 24 and Alias did well with season-long story arcs and cliffhanger endings, so we’re now seeing more long-form storytelling on TV.  Prison Break has been great fun, Lost keeps getting recommended to me, and Jericho seems to have some traction.  But what if you start a season-long story with no guarantee you’ll be able to finish it? 

NBC cancelled “Kidnapped” and now Fox has cancelled “Vanished”.  Anyone who wants to watch the end of the story will have to stream it from the net.  CBS is doing the same with Smith. I suppose they figure they’re only disappointing the handful of people who were actually watching.

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I blame a certain schoolmate of Irish descent and Captain Morgan.  Instead of waiting in line bright and early on Sunday morning like a good nerd, I was zonked out on his sofa (no, not Captain Morgan’s).  I’m not sure how late we stayed up, I stopped keeping track at five am. 

So, by the time I got moving at the crack of noon, they were all gone.  All the way up I-35, from Austin to Dallas, they were sold out.  Oh well, there’s always the next shipment.

Fox cancels the TV special, HarperCollins cancels the book.  I’m sure OJ can find an alternative outlet for his hypothetical scenario, however.

Maybe it’s just a ploy to lure the real killer out of hiding.

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Sony executives mocked Miscrosoft’s poorly handled Xbox 360 launch last year, but they ended up to be worse than MS at getting units out into the stores.  Chaos ensues:

Armed thugs yesterday robbed a line of people waiting to buy the PlayStation 3 in Putnam, Conn., and a man who refused to hand over his money was shot in the chest.

In Palmdale, Calif., police shut down a Super Wal-Mart Stores outlet after a line of people waiting for the new game console got out of control. In Tysons Corner, police fired pepper spray toward a crowd of about 200 people who rushed the locked doors of a Circuit City Stores outlet before it opened.

Standing in line for days doesn’t get a ringing endorsement:

Another new PS3 owner, Michael Torres of Bethesda, said he was too exhausted to take the console out of the box yesterday. Torres and his wife had been camping out at Circuit City since Tuesday. At some point, he came to regret the urge to get a new PS3 no matter what, but he also didn’t want to give up his place in line.

“I would never, ever do that again,” he said. “You’re under a tarp, sitting there with the rain pelting down on you — you’re asking yourself ‘why?’ and you’re not coming up with any good answers.”

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In Boston, the cops get called out for nerd control, and the mayor wants to bill Sony for causing the mess:

Dozens of Boston Police officers were called to the Copley Place Mall this morning when an estimated 200 people showed up to get their hands on the coveted PlayStation 3 video game, expected to be the hottest gift this holiday season. 

Several people had already been waiting in line for days waiting for the doors of the Sony Style store to open at 6 this morning. Even though mall security and police tried to control the crowd, witnesses tell WBZ there was a mad dash to get to the store. 

Police eventually ended up putting people outside in the pouring rain until the situation was under control.

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In Milwaukee, a Wal-Mart manager gets the bright idea of letting people rush to claim the available systems using the musical-chairs method, and we get video of some guy getting his jaw dislocated as someone slams him into a metal pole.

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Then the scalpers take over:

There are over twenty thousand systems up for bidding on eBay, and the number being sold is increasing with every passing hour. Additional systems are being sold through other auction sites like Yahoo! Auctions, and community sites like Craigslist. Five thousand systems or pre-orders have already been sold on eBay. PlayStation 3 consoles are selling for anywhere from $1500 to $3000, not counting the auctions concluding at outrageous prices, like those closing at upwards of $30,000, which are undoubtedly the work of false bidders out to make things harder for the scalpers.

Scarcity is the driving force behind the resale listings from these scalpers. Sony was not able to meet the 400,000 system mark that was previously announced, with many retailers receiving far fewer systems than anticipated, if any at all. The EB Games and GameStop stores recently revealed that only 60% of their pre-orders would be fulfilled and that many of their 60GB pre-orders would be getting replaced by 20GB systems.

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The New York Times was not impressed with the high-priced gadget:

The PS3, which was introduced in North America on Friday with a hefty $599 price tag for the top version, certainly delivers gorgeous graphics. But they are not discernibly prettier than the Xbox 360’s. More important, the whole PlayStation 3 system is surprisingly clunky to use and simply does not provide many basic functions that users have come to expect, especially online.

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“What’s weird is that the PS3 was originally supposed to come out in the spring, and here it came out in the fall, and it still doesn’t feel finished,” Christopher Grant, managing editor of Joystiq, one of the world’s biggest video-game blogs, said on the telephone Saturday night. “It’s really not the all-star showing they should have had at launch. Sony is playing catch-up in a lot of ways now, not just in terms of sales but in terms of the basic functionality and usability of the system.”

But then, if you have a TV that can’t tune all the different hi-def resolutions, maybe you’re better off without one until Sony gets its act together:

Some HDTVs, especially older models, are only capable of displaying 480i (standard definition), 480p (enhanced definition) and 1080i. Normally this isn’t an issue, as HD receivers and cable boxes (and even the Xbox 360) can be set to output at the resolution that your TV supports. Unfortunately, it’s been discovered that PS3s aren’t so friendly to these older 1080i-only HDTVs. The problem lies in titles that output at 720p, such as Resistance: Fall of Man, NHL 2K7, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07 and Need for Speed Carbon.

According to a report on IGN, the problem lies in what the PS3 decides to do when it’s playing a game that outputs in 720p on an HDTV that only does 1080i. Apparently, the PS3 doesn’t scale the 720p image to 1080i, thus outputting an HD signal that the TV can’t display. Instead, it downscales the signal to 480p, which is not HD. This issue comes both with the HDMI cable and component cables.

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I can’t in good conscience recommend that anyone buy an Xbox 360.

This is not to say that there’s not some entertainment to be had with one, but the product just isn’t reliable. Couple that with a 90-day warranty, and you have the potential for a lot of disgusted customers.
When I bought mine in January, the Best Buy clerk tried to sell me hard on the extended warranty, but I generally don’t mess with such things. I thought it was odd to have a company essentially badmouthing the product I was purchasing that very instant.

Perhaps I should have given them the $60, since stories of system failures were all over the net. Now it’s to the point where MS voluntarily extended the warranties of systems made before the end of 2005. I don’t know why they picked that cut-off date, but I missed it by 10 days.

I got to have two different drones at Xbox’s support number tell me that I was out of luck, but they did offer me a 25% discount on the $130 repair. I might have sprung for that if it wasn’t for all the stories of people who get defective systems back from MS. As it is, I think I’ll take that money and spend it on something that MS doesn’t make. Maybe I’ll get it fixed after the first of the year, I can’t say I’m in a hurry right now.

If MS is smart, and I’m not particularly convinced that they are, they’ll get their manufacturing issues fixed and start giving a decent warranty. MS loses money when people buy their systems. MS makes money when people buy games and accessories for their systems. People with broken systems don’t buy games for them.

Bring on the Wii.

A booster’s unusual ultimatum has placed the University of North Texas in an awkward position: Rename its new athletic facility after the just-fired football coach or allow the donor’s $1 million gift to be redirected to the music department.

To keep the peace, and perhaps keep open the big-money pipeline, school officials say they will honor the odd request from Houston furniture magnate Jim McIngvale — known locally as “Mattress Mack” for his goofy TV and radio spots.

Thus, the McIngvale Practice Facility will get renamed for Darrell Dickey, who was fired last week. No timeline for the renaming is set.

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Whatever you’re saying or doing, somebody won’t like it.

Coca Cola Zero is a great mixer. So is Sprite Zero.

Socialism is fundamentally flawed because it assumes that human beings will somehow stop acting like human beings once socialism has been adequately explained to them. The only reason to advocate socialism is if you’d like to live off of the labors of others, or if you think you’ll get to be in charge. Now that I think about it, that’s probably why a lot of college students find it irresistible.

The Xbox 360 has the best controller of any console I’ve used.

People should be allowed to smoke in bars, but it’s just rude to do it in a restaurant.

SOS pads work surprisingly well. So do those Magic Erasers.

Television news is the least informative form of news because they are helpless without a visual image. Thus, important things that don’t associate well with pictures don’t get covered well or at all.

Half the population is below average. Half of that half thinks they aren’t.

The only way Oxi Clean fights odors in the laundry is by making the laundry smell like Oxi Clean.

People would be horrified if they knew how much random chance factors into the outcome of a lawsuit.

Don’t buy a house that faces west if you can avoid it.

There’s not enough of a difference between Sam’s Club and Costco to justify buying a membership to both.

Rap has finally overtaken Country as the least imaginative form of popular music.

If you don’t want to hear something you’ve said again, then don’t say it in front of your child.