So I've decided to start placing some of my photos on Flickr.  Click here to give them a look!

Carnivale Season 2 came out on DVD this week - a show which Kim and I both loved despite its early demise. I had planned on picking it up at Costco since they usually have great prices on HBO series, but they didn't get it in (or even list it on their website), so I looked around elsewhere online.

Turns out that Wal-Mart.com had it listed for $63, which is what Costco usually prices at, so I decided to stop by the local Wal-Mart to pick it up.  When I got there, the price was $78, so I figured, hey, print out their web page and have them price match it.

Wrong.

Turns out Wal-Mart refuses to match their own website.  Furthermore, from talking to their electronics guy, they won't price match another Wal-Mart store.

Wal-Mart - Always Low Prices...unless you find it cheaper within their own system.

While it may not be quite as bad as having Optimus portrayed as a John Deere, I have to say that the truck below is NOT Optimus Prime either:

Unfortunately for all of us fans who fondly remember our childhood Transformers, the creators of the new Transformers movie disagree.

While I try not to be one of the rabid masses, I can't help but agree with the sentiments of those who ask the question: "Why even make a Transformers movie if you don't use the iconic Transformers?"  First they make Bumblebee a Camaro instead of a VW Bug (which I understand is due to VW refusing to allow licensing of the Bug for "portrayals of war").  Then they talk about having a number of scenes with Prime without his facemask on "to highten the emotion of the scenes".  And now they've altogether changed the look of one of the most iconic figures of the past 25 years.

Of course, why should I be surprised?  It's being directed by Michael Bay (of Armageddon, Pearl Harbor, and the Bad Boys series), a man who could make a movie about Pearl Harbor nearly unwatchable. 

Yikes.

A recipient of one of those Nigerian email spam scams turns the table on the scammer and get's them to think they're entering an art scholarship for $150,000 - eventually sending a wood carving sculpture of a Commodore 64 keyboard.

Read more about it here.

Remember that piece of metal Kim found in her take-home sandwich from The Cheesecake Factory?  Since we were making a trip up to Costco (which is in the same area), we decided to take it up there and show it to the manager this evening. 

We talked to Leslie A., who looked shocked when she saw the piece.  "You didn't bite into it, did you?" was one of the first things she asked.  She then took it to the general manager, and they thought it looked like it broke off of a dicer.  According to Leslie, the piece would be sent up to corporate with a report.

She thanked us several times for taking the time to bring it back and let them know, and even gave us a $50 gift card for our trouble.

All in all, I think they handled it well, and odds are we'll eat there again, though I don't know Kim will get the chicken salad again.

It's official!

A friend of mine is a museum registrar, and she passed this story along today privately via her non-public blog.  I thought it very funny, so she has allowed me to re-post it here with changes to protect her job.

Kim and I went to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner on Saturday night, where Kim ordered her usual chicken salad sandwich.  She took half home.

On Sunday, when she was eating the leftover half for lunch, she found a nasty little surprise inside:

Yikes!  In the future, we'll take our chicken salad without the half-inch piece of metal, thank you very much.

Earlier this week I posted a blog entry about Amazon.com's outdated systems page.  The next morning, Joystiq - a popular video game blog - ran the story, linking to my page as the source.

It looks like someone at Amazon also saw the story, because now they've updated the Browse by System page (rather hastily, too, by the look of things).

My friend Calvin recently started working at Jay's CD & Hobby in Des Moines - a place that carries tons of new and vintage action figures.  I asked him to keep his eyes open for a complete original Optimus Prime a few weeks ago.  Last night he called to tell me they had one.

I went up and bought it - it was in good condition though it could use some cleaning (it is 20 years old after all) and some of the stickers are peeling (though there are sites that sell reproduction stickers for them).

What's funny though is how much *cheaper* the original Transformers look than we remember them.

About a year ago, I bought a 20th Anniversary Optimus Prime - a deluxe figure put out designed to look as much like the Optimus from the cartoon series as possible.  You see, what most people don't realize is that the toys were out before the cartoon, so the cartoon modified the design of the toys to be more visually appealing.  As time has passed, we tend to remember the look of the cartoon as being the same as the toys, which they really weren't.

In the picture above, the 20th Prime is on the left, while the original is on the right.  It's so much simpler!  The 20th prime takes nearly 30 steps to transform, while the original is around 5 steps.  To transform the original, you actually have to pull the hands off of the figure - who remembers that?  I certainly didn't.

I've had friends over who have seen my 20th Prime out and said "Yeah, I remember having that figure as a kid!"  Nope, that's just how we remember it.

Like I said, I bought the original figure anyways.  It may not be as cool as the new figure, but I've always had a soft-spot for Optimus.  Having the figure on my desk reminds me of when I was little, putting the Optimus figure on lay-away at Richmond Gordman and waiting what felt like years to pay it off and take it home. 

The original Prime once transformed.

After getting a DS lite a few weeks ago, I've been looking for a good accessory for carrying around those little game cards it uses.  After striking out at Best Buy, I decided to give Amazon a try.  Not really knowing the name of the product I was looking for, I decided to browse by system.  I went to their Computer & Video Games section and not noticing the system links on the side of the page, I clicked the Browse by System link at the top.  That is where I found this:

Click to view full page screenshot

Let's see...  no Nintendo DS listed, nor is the Xbox 360 listed.  But they have the original GameBoy, N64, PlayStation and Sega Dreamcast listed.

I can't help but suspect that this page has not been updated in several years.

This reminds me of when I went to the south Des Moines Wal-Mart earlier this year looking to pick up a copy of Ghost Recon.  While there I noticed a sign stating "The Latest Games" above their game cabinet - on it was a logo for the N64, the Playstation and the Dreamcast.  I went back there a month ago looking to get a camera phone shot, but they'd since used black marker on the logos.

I now have our wedding photos up on my website!  Click here to see them!

Word was swirling around the game blogs yesterday that some Wal-Marts and Targets had broken the June 11th release date of the Nintendo DS Lite (the new sleeker, brighter DS), stocking and selling the units before the allowed street date.

Calling around to the Des Moines-area Targets and Wal-Marts, the most common response I got was "lights for the DS?", but the Windsor Heights Wal-Mart reported having 9 of them.  The hunt was on.

Sure enough, the 9 units were sitting on the bottom of the shelf with a hand-written sign with "$129.88" written on it.  I called Phil, who like me had pre-ordered one earlier from GameStop but didn't want to wait until the 11th when he didn't have to, and picked one up for him as well. I then picked up a third unit intended for Ebay but that ended up with Jessica and Adam.  When buying the DS Lites, a slouchy young salesperson came over to the register:

Wal-Mart Guy:  I thought the Nintendo sales rep said these weren't coming out for a few weeks.

Me:  Well, other places are selling them. <None around here, I didn't tell him.>

Wal-Mart Guy:  I guess she didn't know what she was talking about.

Me:  <Phew>

So now I have the DS Lite a couple weeks early, and have been playing away at New Super Mario Bros. and Brain Age.  I also picked up Tetris DS and the new Mario and Luigi role-playing game (I had previously played the GameBoy Advance RPG which was hilarious).

Doing things around the yard - heck, being generally "handy" at all - has never been something that I would describe me as doing with any regularity.  But at the end of each night this week, I feel down right blue collar.

You see, I got a Robomower this week (and with that statement I just lost any feeling towards me from the public of blue-collardness), and I've been placing, testing and burying the required perimeter wire.  What keeps me going despite the sore joints each night is the knowledge that when all is done, I won't have to mow again.

Or in my case I won't have to pay someone else to mow again.

When the robots rise, I will be the first victim.  Chopped into bits, and then Roomba'd up.

Robomower

Hi All.  We've been back for a week now.  I've been sorting through honeymoon photos - I took about 2500 photos (19.9GB worth!), so I'm going through to pick out which ones to put online.

I've had quite a few people ask about the wedding photos.  As soon as I have them, I'll put them up.  Erika has been hard at work getting them ready, so we should have them up soon!

So with Ian and Amy gone and with only some members of Kim's family still in town, it feels for the first time that the wedding is over.  It's a bittersweet feeling.  A year of our lives went into planning our day, and we hope that all of you who could make it had as great a time as we did.  It's both good to have it over, but also sad for it to be gone and past, though a new chapter of my life is now starting.

The saying generally goes that your wedding day is "the happiest day of your life".  In the days leading up to it, I couldn't help but fear it would be stressful, and was worried that the rain was going to force it into a day that always left me wondering what might have been had we had the outdoor wedding.

I was wrong.

The ceremony and reception were perfect.  How could they not be, with my beautiful wife and so many friends and family members in one place?  It all turned out so wonderful, and I am so grateful to everyone who helped make our special day so nice.

We'll have pictures back in a few weeks, so I will get them posted shortly after.

My Wedding Ring

A new Wired article online shows how from generation to generation, new media keeps on turning our children bad.

Being a gamer myself, especially one who was much more active a gamer in my youth, I've often taken those blaming games for real-world violence with a grain of salt.  Inevitably, people will look for the barest threads of connection when trying to explain the unexplainable.  Did the Columbine shooters play Doom?  Probably.  But so do millions of other kids that DON'T go shoot others.  They probably also do things like watch TV and movies, but because games are a phenomena from beyond the formidable years of those in question (i.e. politicians mainly), they look at what they don't understand as the likely cause of the problem when it's just another link in a very long chain.

Over a month without an update?!  Don''t forsake me, Google!

Been busy with wedding planning and getting work caught up for the time off for the wedding and honeymoon, so updating has fallen lower on the priority charts.   But I''ll post a couple tidbits I''ve found online right after this post.

I haven't watched South Park in years, and I've always found that the show varies wildly between very funny and kind of blah.  That being said, I've enjoyed many of the public comments Matt and Trey have made over the years.

Word has it that a recent episode focusing on Scientology was pulled due to pressure from Tom Cruise, who threatened to pull Mission: Impossible 3 advertising, and it also caused Isaac Hayes, who did the voice of the Chef character, to quit the show.

In response to all of the Scientology pressure, Matt and Trey released this statement via their lawyer:

If you don't know much about Scientology, check out this Wikipedia entry on Scientology.  It gives some detail on what they're talking about with Xenu and Thetans and the like.

I've always wondered whether Jon can hear what Garfield thinks.  I mean, they appear to have conversations sometimes, so if Jon CAN'T hear Garfield's thoughts, doesn't that make him kind of crazy?

BoingBoing has a link to this funny site that has taken a number of Garfield strips and removed Garfield's thought balloons, showing the true nature of Jon, at least to an outsider in the "conversation".  There are some other sites with these as well, which are linked to from the BoingBoing posting.

Update:  According to Wikipedia, the trend seems to have originated at this site.

Update Again:  Wow.  It turns out there is even an entire site named "Arbuckle" that is devoted to people redrawing Garfield strips in a "realistic" style without Garfield's thought balloons.  From the Arbuckle introduction:

And for the sake of testing the theory, this is today's comic which I have just changed.

Kim, Abby and I had a deer-on collision last night on the way down to Lacona for Sheila (my step-mother)'s birthday.  None of us were hurt, but the front of my Touareg got pretty damaged along with some of the internals. 

Somehow the deer got up and limped off, jumping a fence and crossing a field.

I'll try and put some photos up later.

Deer Hair

The Broadway version of the Lion King is currently playing in Des Moines at the Civic Center, one of the bigger productions to hit our town in the past few years.  Kim and I have seen it twice so far - once as part of our "Broadway Series" tickets, and once with our friend Jamie who lives downtown.

The show is an amazing blend of acting and puppeteering, starting with a huge parade of animals during the opening Circle of Life song and continuing through the show with a great blend of African tribal rhythms, evocative lighting, great costumes that call out to the Disney characters while also highlighting the actors, and amazing vocal talent.

Our first time at the show we had seats about halfway back and right in the center giving us a direct view of the entire stage. I really enjoyed the music and spectacle of the show, but I didn't necessarily feel a connection to any of the actors like with some other shows I've seen in the past.  This was completely changed with our second time seeing it.

At last night's show we were fortunate to have seats right in front (while there was a row of two seats in front of us, they were left empty on purpose) to the front-right of the stage (is that stage left to actors?).  The experience from these seats was nothing short of amazing. It was as close as we could be without being an actor on stage.  During the Circle of Life, we had an amazing view of the parade of animals as they passed right next to our seats, and as the animals bowed to king and queen on Pride Rock, we were right there, looking through the animals straight up the stage to the rock.

The little details in the show make the difference.  On the Zazu puppet (Mufasa the king's right-hand bird), the puppet is held by the actor, alternating seamlessly between sitting the puppet on his head and hands while controlling the mouth, eyelids, etc, using a hand control.  The effect is amazing, bringing the animated Zazu to stage life.  Same with details on a character like Poomba the warthog where the eyes move left and right where they could have easily just been painted on.  And then there is Scar, whose mask is attached by a rod behind his neck, allowing the mask to sit on top of the actor's head while he's standing up right, but falling in front of his face for a good lion-effect while slinking around the stage.

If the opportunity arises, I would recommend seeing the show.  Even if you are not typically the "theater-type" or think of the Lion King as a children's show, go see it.  It's really an amazing specatacle.

[All photos are from the Disney on Broadway - The Lion King website]

Will Wright, the creator of Sim City and The Sims has a new game in development that I think looks about as cool as they come.

Imagine a game where you start off with a creature on a cellular level, where you float around eating things and eventually lay an egg.  This opens you up to the ability to make some changes to the creature and progress to the next iteration.  Further on you have a more complex creature in an ocean, swimming, eating and mating, which through the generations you refine to a land-based creature.  Eventually a descendant evolves sentience and you have tools and building, eventually going to a city level, a world level, solar system and galaxy.  And the entire game is created and descended from the creatures you evolve over time and populated with other creatures and civilizations from other players of the game.

There's a really cool video posted on Google Video that you can see by clicking here.  It's fairly long, but in it Will Wright goes through the levels of gameplay.

Pretty cool.

Spore Gameplay Video

Official Spore Website
The intro animation actually does a great and humorous job of conveying how far the game goes.

Each month, the Television Without Pity sister-store Glarkware has a few TV-show specific shirts available for that month only.  As a Battlestar Galactica fan, I found this month's shirt really funny.

Frakkin' Toaster shirt

And what really makes it funny is the description text going along with it:

A toaster is capable of a lot more than you might think at first glance. Even more than toasting your bread, actually. Treat it poorly, and it will find a way to collude with other toasters to overthrow humanity. But treat it well, and...well, you and that little old toaster might actually find love. It's not a love that either of your communities will sanction or even understand, but you know best: that seemingly simple appliance loves you from the coils of its heart.

Of course, if you don't watch BSG, you won't understand this at all.  If that's you, then you really should be watching the show.  Or don't you like good television?

Meghan has a blog!  You should read it.  Now.

Natalie Portman's SNL rap... now hosted directly on NBC.com. Click here or on the image above.

I'm not sure who took the time to make this, but it's got the right details!

The Legend of Zelda series turned 20 years old yesterday. 

I remember when I got my first NES how I opted to get Donkey Kong 3 instead of "that gold game", but that we got Zelda a few months later.  It was one of the few games that I can think of that Dad and I both played through, separately but over the same course of time.  To this day he takes credit for having beaten Ganon first, though I still maintain that I let him do it so I could use his map of the final dungeon.

1up.com has a good list of 20 reasons Link still rocks.