Well, that was a rough week. A 30-point loss. Ouch.

Granted, I had several players on the bye week - so many that I had to trade Tony Gonzalez for Fred Taylor because I needed a running back - and none of my fill-ins performed. But even those “starters” who did play - like Marshawn Lynch, Larry Fitzgerald, Dwayne Bowe - did nothing. Each of their teams had 30 or more points but not one of them had a touchdown. How does that even happen?

Of course, Gonzalez had a TD. Taylor and Tony Scheffler, my replacement for Gonzalez, had six points combined. Sigh.

At least Roethlisberger didn’t have a minus-one again.

So it’s back to 2-2, in the middle of the pack… and, I have to assume, given my roster and my belief that I was extremely lucky to get those two wins… that it’s all downhill from here.

Tags: Fantasy football

Well, I finally got around to playing Mass Effect. My girlfriend got it for me for Christmas but I kept waiting and waiting to play it; I find I don’t get “into” RPGs unless I really devote some time to them, and I never seemed to have enough time to devote to it.

Until recently, anyway. I finished up Lego Star Wars and decided, before I buy something new, that I should play one of the games I own but haven’t played yet. Mass Effect was top of the list.

I recall when Mass Effect was released, it got a lot of attention; after all, this was BioWare’s first XBox 360 game, and their Knights of the Old Republic was a system-defining game on the original XBox.

But most of the reviews said Mass Effect was good but not great - even the reviews that gave it high scores spent a lot of time pointing out its flaws. So, nine months after release, what do I think?

I think the reviews were absolutely correct. Mass Effect is this close to being a great game, but it’s held back by a couple of nagging issues.

First of all, the overarching storyline, combined with the setting, is fantastic. In the 22nd century humanity is a small part of a galactic culture, trying to earn its place at the big kids table, the known only as The Council. This in itself is a very welcome idea - in virtually all sci-fi games, humanity is front and center of any future galactic culture (see: Star Trek). This really adds a nice flavor to the game.

Plotwise, one of the the Council’s elite operatives, known as Spectres, has gone rogue. As human Commander Shepherd, it’s up to you to track him down, and, along the way, hopefully show everyone that humanity really does deserve a voice in the galactic society.

As you go you meet up with lots of different people, including six who join you in your quest (you can take two along with you for each mission). Each has skills and abilities that make them stand out, including “biotic” abilities (kind of like the Force abilities from KOTOR) and tech abilities (like computer hacking). And of course you’ve got your usual assortment of weapons and armor and other gadgets.

You travel from planet to planet in your starship, the Normandy, and you can land on certain planets and boot around in the Mako, an all-terrain vehicle.

If I have any flaws with the story it’s that a couple of specific elements are a little too derivative of other sci-fi. At one point, a colonist is taken over by a mind controlling parasite and before hurting anyone else, turns his gun on himself. Straight out of Star Trek II, no? Later some explorers discover alien eggs on an ancient derelict alien ship. Turns out these eggs hold vicious, insect-like aliens. Well a large company wants to harvest them and use them for military purposes. Of course, the aliens can’t be controlled so they end up nearly taking over a planet. Sounds like the first two Alien films, no?

Look, all stories are somewhat derivative, I know that. But these were just too blatant - it shows a lack of creativity and, given how original much of the rest of the story is, it really made these elements stand out.

Aside from that, as I say, the overall story is great and very engaging. One thing that really helps keep it moving is the voice acting and dialogue. Every bit of dialogue is voice acted and it’s all very well done.

Of course, part of the brilliance is the way you can mold your character, Commander Shepherd, the way you want. Firstly, you can customize your appearance - gender included - as well as your skill set. But you can also change your background, which affects how other people react to you and even some missions.

All of the main storyline missions are brilliantly executed; most involve dealing with one driving around in your Mako, getting into a firefight or two, and dealing with one morally complex problem or another. And each of these main missions takes place on a nicely designed planetary installation of some kind or another. I particularly liked the very ominous drive across the snowswept road on Feros and the approach to the base on Virmire.

Along the way, there’s a number of interesting characters (all of them unique), lot of twists and surprises, lots of action and conflict, and even some romance (which you’ve no doubt heard about).

When the story reaches its climax, which I won’t spoil, it’s all taken up a notch. There is a final “boss battle” of sorts, which is tough, but not too tough, and it’s made all the better by the exciting grand finale. You’ve still got a couple of choices to make as the game winds down, and there’s a nice wrap up, with, of course, plenty of hints at what might happen in a sequel (or two).

So that’s the main mission. The side missions, of which you can do as many or as few as you like, start out interesting… but get tedious pretty quickly.

First off, you start out on the Citadel, home of galactic government - basically a massive space station. There are various little quests to do here, similar to those of KOTOR - find something for someone, take someone out for someone else, etc. You get some credits and some experience, and these are great at the start of the game - they’re not too difficult and they help you get used to the game and mechanics.

But once you leave and start doing side missions, the boredom factor sets in. You can travel from system to system using your handy galactic map; can land on some planets, and survey others from orbit. When on-planet, sadly, all the planets (again, except for the main mission ones) are disappointingly similar. All are made up of rocky terrain, of varying colors. All have one or two small bases or a mine for you to explore - all of which have the same design and layout, on each planet. And there’s on or two “objects of interest on the surface,” usually a crashed probe or dead body, and some minerals to survey.

So, you drive around in your Mako, you run into the same groups of bad guys (over and over and over), you finish your objective - usually scanning something, or finding something, or stopping some alien bad-guy threat - and then you leave.

And… that’s about it. None of the planets has a city. There are no large or medium bases, or spaceports. There’s no rivers, or trees. Just rocky expanses.

Oh, wait. One planet has monkeys (but still no trees). Seriously.

So, there you have it. Of course you don’t have to complete the side missions, you can just do the main quest, but if you’re going to level your character up and get access to the best weapons, not to mention complete a good number of achievements, you need to do some missions.

I will say, I had the fortune of starting Mass Effect just a few days before Microsoft put the downloadable mission, Bring Down the Sky (or BDTS), on sale. So naturally I picked that up straight away, and soon enough found myself exploring asteroid X57.

BDTS is an add-on side quest; you get a message saying there’s a problem at Terra Nova and head to that system to investigate. I didn’t actually even realize this was the Bring Down the Sky mission until about halfway through; it’s integrated seamlessly.

I enjoyed this mission, and in fact it’s a shame I played it so early because it’s actually a little different and more involved than the other planetary assignments. It would have been nice to play it around the middle of the game to break up the monotony of those other planets.

Yes, there’s still more driving around the rocky planetary surface, but there is a little more depth to the mission; you have a couple of serious moral choices to make that really make this mission stand out. And the base and various areas on the asteroid are a little different than the other planets you visit.

Anyway, I definitely recommend the download, especially when it’s on sale, and I hope BioWare releases some further downloadable missions.

As for the gameplay itself, I found combat to be a lot of fun, as long as you’re using guns - you carry four of them (assault rifle, shotgun, pistol and sniper rifle) and each has their time and place - and the various biotic abilities. There’s a ton of different weapons models and upgrades to try out throughout the game that drastically affect each gun’s performance in one way or another, and there’s a good number of biotic powers and enhancements you can give yourself and your team.

Close in, however, the melee attacks don’t work nearly as well. Melee is keyed to the right trigger, which is also the shoot button. So you basically have to rely on the computer to determine if an enemy’s close enough to punch, which most times, the computer doesn’t do very well. So you’re shooting off into the distance over your enemy’s head while they beat the crap out of you, and the camera doesn’t make enough allowance to really see where your enemy is when you’re that close to each other. Basically, hand-to-hand combat is a real pain the ass. My advice - stay away and use your guns. Much more enjoyable. You can also use cover in firefights, popping to surfaces and peaking around corners, much like Gears of War; I found the cover system actually worked pretty well.

You’ve also got shields, health packs, grenades, and of course your biotic attacks to help make combat a slightly different experience every time. The biotic and tech attacks will be less or more powerful depending on how you set up your character in the beginning but several of your companion characters can make use of them as well.

As you go along you get credits to buy new things, and you can break items down into “omni-gel,” a mysterious substance that you need for hacking things and repairing your Mako vehicle. I found that you can get the majority of the weapons and upgrades you need just by opening crates throughout the game; I hardly spent any money and ended up with more than 4 million credits at the end.

Your other “accessory” is the Mako vehicle. Driving around in the Mako is fun at first, too. It rolls over most anything, and has some boosters to give it a little jump when you need it. But driving quickly becomes tedious as you cover the same terrain over and over on every planet, and in some cases, it’s so ridiculously rocky, all the bouncing will almost make you dizzy.

The Mako has an assault rifle-like gun, as well as a pretty powerful cannon, to help you deal your enemies some pain, and you will come into combat in the Mako. One thing to note about the Mako, though. Like you, it has shields. Unlike you, its shields recharge at… an… incredibly… slow… rate.

This actually really bothered me. Look, Bungie recognized, with Halo, that you need to keep things moving in games. So if you’re going to give someone shields that recharge on their own, they need to recharge quickly. So Halo pioneered the idea that when you’re not taking fire, your shields can recharge in seconds. Now most games do it - because as a developer, you never, ever, want your user to say “I’ll just stand here for 5 minutes while my shields recharge,” which is what you used to have to do in a lot of games. Bungie realize it’s much more important to keep users engaged at all times.

On foot, in Mass Effect, this holds true - stand back out of fire for a few seconds, your shields begin to recharge, and as you level up and get new armor and upgrades you can tweak the time it takes significantly. By level 50 it’s virtually instanteous.

In the Mako… not so much. I honestly could not believe that, in a 2007 game, I actually had to pull the “I’ll just wait until my shields recharge” routine, more than once. And it’s a good four of five minutes! Not good. And though you can use the omni-gel to repair the Mako, the omni-gel doesn’t repair shields, and there are no upgrades that make it any faster. Hurm.

As reported elsewhere, there are also a couple of gameplay glitches, and I experienced a few, including characters getting stuck places, characters walking or falling through walls, the camera getting stuck under the Mako… not enough to declare them a major problem, but enough to notice them. My advice would be to save often, since there’s nothing worse than getting stuck and having to reload!

Overall, the gameplay is good, and the controls outside of the melee issue are pretty solid and easy to learn. And I really did enjoy combat - in most firefights, there’s enough of a challenge, and nothing ridiculously frustrating, and you have a enough weapons and special abilities to keep it from being repetitive.

Graphically, things generally look fantastic, especially facial models and human movement. Some of the most realistic I’ve seen in a game yet. The backgrounds are also well done, but as mentioned, many of the building designs repeat over and over throughout the game. More variation would have been nice.

I will note, as well, that there is a lot of texture pop-in, which again, made me think, “why is this still happening in a 2007 game?” I thought we’d have mastered these annoying things by now. I know it doesn’t affect game play at all, but still, it does take you out of the moment when everything’s soft and blurry and suddenly becomes crystal clear.

Along the same lines, there’s also the much-publicized long load times, including those hidden by long elevator rides. Those have been covered elsewhere, so I won’t harp on it too much, it’s just another one of those “this is 2008, this game is less than a year old, why am I still dealing with this” issues.

At the end of the day, I finished the game and all the side missions I could in about 35 hours. Without the side missions, you could definitely do it in less than half of that, but you won’t level up as much - and I imagine the final battle would have been a lot tougher at a lower level!

Overall, chiefly because of the great main storyline, I would definitely recommend Mass Effect (especially since it’s now a $40 title and BDTS is “on sale” for 300 MS points). If you enjoy RPGs and/or are a sci-fi fan at all, it’s a must-play.

Now, it’s on to Rock Band 2! I promised myself I wouldn’t play it until ME was done - so it’s time to Rock!

Tags: Mass Effect, XBox 360 Review

So, we rammed through the short second season of Heroes in about a week. There’s absolutely no doubt that it was inferior to the first season. But, in all honesty, I can’t blame the show for that; it was painfully obvious that the writer’s strike was to blame. You could clearly see there was a lot more that the writers wanted to develop but never got the chance to.

It’s unfortunate, too, because I love the “children paying for the sins of the parents” idea. The idea was present in the first season, as Mohinder felt the after-effects of his father’s work, and it looked like we were going to explore it a lot more here… but as it stands it was really only Matt and Claire that dealt directly with their parental issues. There were so many questions left about the previous generation of “heroes” that I wanted answered - and I expected answers, given that this “volume” was called Generations - that left me very disappointed.

I want to know exactly what these people joined together to do back in the 1970s. What were their real goals - how did they intend to “save the world?” How did they find each other, why did they develop this mysterious virus in the first place? I want to know what Peter and Nathan’s parents powers are, and Kaito Nakamura’s as well. Too much was left unsaid.

As for the story itself, it was… OK. As with the first season, I don’t really understand the motivation of the villain here. Adam Monroe says the world needs to be cleansed. OK. But to what end? He would have released his virus, and then… What would he have done after the Shanti virus destroyed human civilization? He would go on, living forever, by himself? And he hatched this plan in 1977! He’s had 30 years to think about it and still thinks it’s the best thing to do!? He would have ruled a dead planet for all eternity! Fantastic. Wouldn’t it have made a little more sense if the “virus” had the effect of killing only “regular” humans?

I also don’t get why Matt’s father helped Adam. What could Maury possibly get out of it? Did Adam promise him he’d use his own blood to keep Maury alive when everyone else died? Certainly Adam couldn’t have threatened him; he can read Adam’s mind, influence his thoughts, even put him in his own worst nightmare. Their “partnership” made little sense and should have been expanded upon.

I was further disappointed by Peter’s characterization. Honestly… why is he such a ninny? He’s so bloody naïve it’s unbelievable. He should be the best character on the show - more than anyone, he wants to help people, to do the right thing, not because he wants to be a hero - like Hiro - but simply because it’s the right thing to do.

But from his introduction as an amnesiac - terribly original, that, and why, exactly, does the Haitian take his memories? - to his falling in love at the drop of a hat, to his wanting his power taken away, to blindly following Adam… not once, the entire season, does he do anything pro-active - he simply reacts to everyone around him. Why is he so naïve? Especially at this point; Nathan and his mother almost betrayed him at the end of season 1, the company betrayed him in season 2, why isn’t he a little bit suspicious that Adam may not be on the level?

Look, Peter is the most powerful of all the “heroes.” He’s also potentially the best character, and Milo Ventimiglia is a good actor. This should, essentially, be his show. But to show him continually following along blindly and not making his own decisions really undermines his character.

He’s also hurt by some lazy writing… after all, he can read minds but never bothers to discover if Adam is telling him the truth of his motives. He has no problem reading Victoria Pratt’s to discover where the virus is, but doesn’t probe further to get her perspective on Adam’s plan? Even after Victoria tells him Adam’s a bad guy - and then Adam shoots her in the back - Peter doesn’t think that maybe he should check and be sure?

It was also incredibly repetitive to have him travel to the future, discover it devastated, then decide he had to go back and change things. Um, didn’t we see that EXACT SAME SEQUENCE in the first season, with Hiro?

And in a terrible moment of plot-device driven writing in the finale, Peter - instead of simply walking though a vault door - decides to open it using telekinesis. What? Yeah. Why does he do this? There is no “real” reason, but it quickly becomes obvious: it’s so that once the door is open, he can fight off the other heroes outside so Adam can go in, alone, and Peter can’t see Adam’s true intentions as he releases the virus.

What’s worse is that they carry this scene on for several minutes as Peter strains and sweats and even gets a nose bleed trying to open the door with his mind. Seriously. Every single viewer is sitting there saying, “why doesn’t he just walk through?” and they’re dragging this scene on like this? It was awful, it really was. I nearly ruined the entire episode for me.

Again, Peter is the most powerful of all of them. Why give him these powers if he’s not going to use them? I’m just very disappointed in how little they’ve developed him as a character.

The second best character on the show, Hiro, meanwhile, does enjoy some serious character development here. While the “character time travels/has to fix the timeline” bit has been done to death, it did give Hiro a chance to learn some valuable lessons, particularly with regards to his own power and how easy it is to screw everything up when you time travel. However - and I again fault the writer’s strike for this - it seems he completely FORGETS this when he comes back to the present, finds out his father’s dead, and tries to travel back in time and save him! Despite everything he just learned about screwing with time, he does it again!

But, Kaito sets him straight and honestly, their final moments were some of the best of the entire series. Guess it took him a couple of tries but he seems to finally be getting the “power and responsibility” lesson.

Thankfully the writers recognized at least somewhat that Hiro and Peter are the two most important characters, as for the second season in a row, it was the two of them that ended up stopping the villain in the end. That was good to see.

And, the confrontation with Mohinder and Sylar was also pretty well done, and made for some tense moments. The final scene with Sylar getting his powers back was cool, and I look forward to him being the bad guy again next season… though hopefully, with more of a purpose than we’ve previously seen.

I think a final problem with the season was the introduction of too many new characters. Bob, Elle, Maya and Alejandro, Adam, Monica, West… I mean the show already has a large cast, did we really need another half-dozen people involved? And in such a shortened season they all felt really crammed in. Hopefully for next season they streamline the show a bit and focus on the main characters a little more.

So, overall, the season was a let-down, but it wasn’t awful, and not entirely the fault of the creators or people involved in the show - it’s the fault of Hollywood politics.

But now that that’s all been settled, and they’re no doubt aware of the problems that plagued the second season, I expect to see a much stronger third season.

I’ve got victory #2 under my belt! It was definitely a crazy day. After all, I had Ronnie Brown on my bench!! 39 points! Five touchdowns, one of them passing? Un-be-leivable.

Still, I got good days from Julius Jones, Marshawn Lynch and Larry Fitzgerald; and it looks like Matt Cassel was the right call - though he had a mere five points, that’s better than Ben Roethlisberger’s -1!

My opponent got a lot of points in the afternoon games from Drew Brees, Brandon Marshall and Joseph Addai, but Mason Crosby and the Packers D saved my skin. Trailing by 9 heading into the night game, Crosby got 10 points and although the Packers D gave up a lot, they did offset it with an interception and a fumble recovery. Phew!

Gotta say that I was very impressed with Dallas after watching that game. I thought the Packers played just fine, they didn’t make too many mistakes, but they simply could not keep pace with the Cowboys. And this is on a night when Terrell Owens was a non-factor!

And Marion Barber… I can’t remember the last time I saw a guy that was that hard to bring down.

I’ve also heard their defense wasn’t great this year, but they held the Packers in check, particularly the running game (and even about 90 of the passing yards they gave up were in the final five minutes, when they were playing prevent).

So, the Pack failed their first real test and are 2-1 on the year. This is no knock on Aaron Rodgers, who was solid again; they just couldn’t get enough going on the ground to balance things out and they couldn’t bring down Marion Barber enough.

As for fantasy, like the Packers I’m 2-1 and flying high! OK, that’s a little extreme but all things considered, I am happy I got a couple of wins. I really was afraid this was going to be a zero-win season after week one. It’s obviously possible that two wins is all I’ll get - especially if Cassel’s play against Miami is indicative of what he’ll do the rest of the year and Roethlisberger’s really hurt - but hey, two wins is better that’s better than none!

I can’t believe I had Ronnie Brown on the bench!!!!!!

And yet I still won? Unbelievable. I honestly think the football gods have taken pity on me. 2-0 since the Brady injury? Gotta be divine intervention.

Results:

So, after 10 days, is this device - that I pined over for more than a month, that I am paying an arm and a leg for - worth it?

An emphatic YES after week one. Let’s break it down and see what’s what.

Phone and iPod
So, these are the two items this one device replaces for me, and one of the main reasons I wanted the phone - so I only had to carry one device instead of two.

I’ll admit it hasn’t made me use it as a phone any more than I normally would (which is to say, hardly at all). And I’ve used it as an iPod exactly the same amount as I normally would (a couple of hours every day). It’s the beauty of having them both in one that makes me feel like I’m getting my money’s worth.

The phone itself is crisp and clear, which is something I was concerned about - after all, what the hell does apple know about making a phone? But the quality is great.

And the iPod is far superior to my Nano; I absolutely love it. I mentioned before about the shuffling playlists/songs right from the top of each list, as opposed to having to go back to settings - I can’t even tell you what a difference this makes, as I have several playlists I like to play in order and several I like on random. It’s a small thing, but het.

Another small touch, I also really like seeing all the album art so nice and clearly.

While I have no quantifiable way of proving this and it may just be my enthusiasm fro the device, but I do believe the iPhone sounds better than my 2nd-gen Nano too. Whether it’s the headphones or the iPod itself, I am hearing softer “background” instruments and sounds I never heard on the Nano.

Speaking of the headphones, how great are they? Specifically, the click button/microphone? Wicked idea. I’ll admit a volume control would be nice, but the ability to pause/play, skip songs, answer/decline calls, etc., without having to take the phone out of my pocket, wake it up, etc. is huge. It’s another brilliantly simple design decision from Apple.

Data
On the data side of things, I’ve probably used it way too much. I have no doubt this will ease up a bit as the novelty of it wears off and I get into some routines about checking e-mail and Facebook etc. I find myself playing with it a lot and surfing the Web even though I’m never far from a computer. (Still, in 10 days I’ve used less than 100MB. I can’t imagine ever reaching 6GB!)

Safari works perfectly well, and though I’ve heard of people experiencing crashes, it hasn’t done so on me yet (knock on wood).

The 3G network has been uniformly fast, and always available. I’m sure living in Toronto helps, we’ll see how fast it is next time I go to Niagara Falls or something.

E-mail
Being able to get e-mail on my phone was a huge part of my desire to own an iPhone, and so far, I love the e-mail application. I’ve probably used it more than anything else except the iPod.

Of course I had to switch from Hotmail to Gmail, which necessitated logging in to a lot of web sites and updating my address. Then, it took me a while to get Gmail set up correctly and synced with Outlook; very nice of Google to bury the correct IMAP settings (and the fact that IMAP is the preferred method over POP3) nice and deep in the back alleys of their support pages. Sigh.

But it’s working now and it’s great on the phone (yet a little slow sending/receiving in Outlook 2007, oddly enough). It’s quick and smooth and I’m even getting the hang of the keyboard; I actually enjoy e-mailing on it.

Still can’t get Gmail to work through Outlook, Outlook Express, or Live Mail at all here at work. We must have the desired POP3/IMAP/SMTP ports blocked on our firewall. Sigh. Nothing’s ever perfect, eh?

Oh, and on the phone interface, I do wish I could collapse that Gmail folder! I don’t need to see all those background folders while my “real” folders fall off below the scroll. Sigh.

Other installed Apps

As for the other things that come pre-installed:

Maps - we made extensive use of the maps/GPS function going to a wedding last Saturday night. I’ve heard some complaints that it doesn’t work very well, and if you’re driving alone, I’d agree - since it doesn’t have voice prompts and trying to read it while driving would likely be deadly - but if you’ve got someone to read the prompts for you, it works great. The maps were accurate and the GPS follows you quickly and smoothly. I don’t know what people are complaining about! Of course were up in Vaughan, I’ll have to test it downtown sometime and see if the buildings interfere.

Weather - I’ve used this a lot, surprisingly! It’s only mildly more convenient than surfing to a news page or turning on the TV, but still, it’s appealing to get it in the palm of your hand! And the interface is pretty.

Stocks - no interest here, and I really wish I could delete the icon! Sigh.

SMS - works perfectly well, although I’m not sure I love the “conversation” layout your texts take. Each text sent/received by a single contact is added to one long stream - and you only have the option of deleting every text from that steam or saving every text.

I don’t need to keep all the texts that say “OK” or “be there in 10 minutes.” But someone might text me with an important number or address that I want to hang on to. And I might send a contact a text 10 days after I sent the previous one, but the iPhone still thinks it’s part of the same “conversation” More sorting/storage options would be nice! Still, other than that, it works just fine.

Contacts - one of my favourite parts of the phone. I love having my phone and e-mail contacts integrated, and synced with my computer! It’s the little things, you know.

Calendar - I’ve never used a planner on a regular basis, but I am trying to take advantage of everything this device has to offer. So far, I have actually been using this, and syncing it with Outlook; it works great, we’ll just have to see if I have enough need of a planner to keep using it.

Photos and Camera - sure, 2 megapixel with no flash isn’t great, but you know what, it’s not bad either! And I didn’t buy the thing for a camera. Both the photo organization and camera are perfectly useful. The screen obviously displays photos really well, and using photo-caller-ID on such a big screen is great (it never made much sense before when on a tiny phone screen, you could barely make the picture out anyway!).

Notes, calculator, clock - haven’t had much use of these yet. Especially the clock - it’s got a freakin’ clock on the top! Bit of a waste of an icon - I’d rather see the clock and weather integrated.

YouTube - haven’t used much Youtube either, but I’ve tried it and it works just fine. Perhaps I’ll get more into the viral video thing now that I’ve got access to it!

App Store and iTunes - I haven’t actually purchased anything from iTunes directly through the phone yet, but I’ve used the App store and it works perfectly well… if you’ve got the time to sort through the thousands of apps. Which leads us to…

Downloadable Applications
Let’s just say it outright - there’s a lot of crap out there in the App store, for sure, and finding the good ones can be a challenge. But here’s notes on a few I’ve discovered:

Facebook - I’m not a huge Facebook user, but since I can’t use it at work, I figured I might use it more now that I can get it on the iPhone. All you can really do is update your status, write on walls and upload photos, but that’s basically what Facebook was in the beginning so that should be enough.

But, I’m a little disappointed in the proprietary Facebook app. It looks nice, but for some reason, it won’t load all my friends’ profile pictures! I also don’t like how the news feed carries only status updates.

If you check Facebook through Safari, it loads up great, and of course you can use it in landscape. You get news feed items as well as status updates, and all the profile pics work fine.

The application has better photo support, though! Frustrating - I’d much prefer to use only one, but each does something better than the other! What was I saying about nothing being perfect… right.

Sportacular and The Score Mobile - Both are sports/scores updaters. The Score has a much nicer interface (and I do like The Score as a station, in general!), but Sportacular offers way more information, with news updates, and more leagues. Both are free, though.

Shazam - Mentioned this one before, and it’s still a killer “check this out!” app to show your friends, but ultimately, the opportunities to use it aren’t plentiful. Still, you never know when you’ll hear a song you simply must own, whether it’s in a movie or at a bar or whatever, and it’s free, so why not?

iWik and Wikipanion - A pair of Wikipedia viewers, that purport to optimize Wikipedia better than Safari.  Both can be used in landscape and portrait and Wikipanion supports pinch-zooming. I find I prefer the interface of iWik, but both are than using Safari to access Wikipedia directly, in which the wiki layout is just too small. And if it’s possible, Wikipedia is even more useful on mobile than it is on PC! Any time someone asks one of these “did you ever wonder…” questions, you’ve got the answer!

Google  - The Google app is a little better than Google on Safari simply because you have more local search options. It’s great to type in “Swiss Chalet,” hit Local, and get directions on the maps app to the closest one.

Koi Pond  - It’s a $0.99 fish pond. Yes, it’s as dumb as it sounds, but it’s just so damn cool! It’s got some nice soothing pond sounds, the fish move around (and swim away when you “splash” the screen), you can even feed them! It’s so dumb. Yet so cool. Definitely a “show off my new toy” app.

WordPress - As mentioned the other day, this works really well and is another in the line of “it blows my mind what this thing can do” apps. But as I also said the other day, I can’t see myself using it all that much - I’m just too wordy in my blog posts (like this 2,500 word opus!).

Games  - There’s way too many to go into detail, but Sol Free Solitaire, ClassicBreak Lite, 21 Pro Blackjack, Sudoku, and Pegjump are all free games I’ve downloaded and kept. They all pass the time adequately.

I may suck it up and pay the $7.99 for Tetris. Who doesn’t love Tetris?

 

Basically, as you can see from the list above, there’s a lot that you can do with this little device. And I’ve just scratched the surface, I think.

There are a couple of issues with the iPhone, most of which have been covered elsewhere, but I’ll mention my experiences with them.

Battery life
It’s definitely not long-lasting. I grant that for everything the phone does, you have to expect that it’s going to drain the battery. I get that. What’s frustrating is Apple’s policy of not letting you replace the battery. Like the iPod, the battery is kept hidden away in “void my warranty land” if you attempt to take it out.

So what that means is, if it dies, you can’t just go to Future Shop, buy a new one, and swap it in. You have to send your phone to Apple. That’s right. You have to live without your phone for a week. And it costs $100! And it wipes all the data off your phone! I’m sorry, that’s bloody ridiculous. You don’t even have the option of taking it in to the Apple store, or at least, that’s not an option given on the Web site. What a joke.

Now, hopefully, you’ll never actually NEED to flat-out replace the battery. It’s total life-span should last through the life of the phone, and if it’s faulty, chances are it’ll die before your one-year warranty expires.

Where it really irks though, is not having a backup. Again, this thing sucks battery life pretty quickly; if it didn’t, this wouldn’t be a big issue, but one forgotten charge, and you might be outta luck. If you could have a backup charged and handy at all times, this wouldn’t be an issue, but you can’t, so you gotta be super-diligent about charging.

It would also suck if you were camping or taking a long flight, or being anywhere for an extended period, without a power source - no matter how diligent you are there’s some places you just can’t plug in! Again, keeping a charged backup around would be handy.

Thankfully, for me, I don’t anticipate being in such a situation often and I’m near enough to various power sources (home, work, car) that I don’t ever have an excuse for not charging. I may need to buy an extra USB/power cable for work though.

Crashing/freezing

The other well-documented problem has been somewhat frequent crashing or freezing. Yesterday was the first time I’ve experienced anything crashing - when checking the football scores in Sportacular. I guess I just wanted too much info too fast and it crashed! Other than that it’s been fine; I suspect that I got in at the right time, when software 2.1 was released. They seem to have worked out a lot of the kinks! (Knock on wood.)

In conclusion…

I love this device. I’m so glad I bought it, and especially glad we got a good deal on the voice plan. If I were paying the full price of Rogers’ advertised plans, I probably wouldn’t be glowing about it so much, because practically speaking, it wouldn’t be worth it. But at almost $30 less per month, it is worth it - worth every penny.

Tags: iPhone

It’s either the banged-up Ben Roethlisberger going against a very good Philly team… in Philly.

I’ve got a healthy but unproven Matt Cassel, at home against the hapless Dolphins… in Foxboro.

It’s quite a tough call. After all, the Steelers have been really pounding the ball on the ground, and with Roethlisberger’s strained shoulder, they probably won’t be airing it out a lot. On the flip side, Philly’s been in a couple of shootouts already, their secondary isn’t great, so Roethlisberger could put up some numbers if it turns into that sort of game. And (at this point in their careers at least) Roethlisberger is clearly the better QB.

But Cassel could potentially have a big day against the Dolphins, who let Kurt Warner pile up about 800 yards without breaking a sweat against them last week. This could be the perfect chance for Belichik to find out what his QB really has, and a good time to get Randy Moss some TD catches. But who knows with Belichik? Cassel’s not been asked to do too much so far, and that could continue, especially if the Pats get a lead. They might be happy to let their trio of running backs (Maroney, Morris and Jordan) take them down the stretch. And, honestly, Cassel might actually stink, know one really knows.

So, Roethlisberger’s the safe bet… but, given that my entire season is on borrowed time after the Brady injury, I actually think the best thing to do here is take a chance on the new kid. I need to take some gambles and hope they pay off to have any hope this season, so I think that’s what I’m gonna have to do.

Let the Matt Cassel era begin!

Tags: Ben Roethlisberger, Matt Cassel

Well, turns out WordPress has an iPhone app! So this is just a test to see if it works…

 

… which, clearly, it does. Awesome. I’m continually amazed by this device!

Obviously I wouldn’t want to write too many of my typically long-winded posts on my iPhone, but it’s pretty cool to have the functionality.

Tags: iPhone

I didn’t watch NBC’s Heroes when it first started airing. Even though it got a lot of praise, even though I’m a “comic book guy,” and even though people said I was crazy for not watching it… it just didn’t appeal to me.The main thing was, I’ve read hundreds of super-hero stories in thousands of comic books. There’s no way this television series would be able to offer me anything new, other than new characters, and I knew that Hollywood to try and make it “edgy” and “hip” and all that crap. Just give me good comic book. I don’t need a comic book on TV.

And I think that was part of the problem - all the critics were going on about how great and original it was and just ignoring the fact that there are hundreds of great super-hero stories waiting for them at the bookstore. It’s that narrow-minded view that comic books are not a legitimate form of art or entertainment, and that if it’s not on TV it’s not any good, that really pissed me off.

Well, two years later I’ve finally given it a shot.

I enjoyed it more than I thought I would, that’s for sure. It was definitely engaging, well-filmed, and with a couple of exceptions, well-acted. The overall story is pretty simplistic - group of super-powered individuals must come together and save the world - but the best stories are often the simplest ones. As I feared, it’s nothing different from anything I’ve seen before, but that’s not a bad thing.

I know for sure if I’d watched it two years ago, I would have hated it - the hype would have dragged me down. But now that the hype is gone, and I was able to watch it as it stands on its own, I enjoyed it.

The performances, as mentioned, were generally pretty good, especially Masi Oka. With the exception of the always-awful Ali Larter and her furrowed-brow husband, Leonard Roberts, the rest of the cast was also rock solid, with standout performances from Sendhil
Ramamurthy and Jack Coleman. The show also featured some fantastic guest stars, including Eric Roberts, George Takei, Richard Roundtree and Malcom MacDowell.

Some notes on a couple of the main leads, though. First off, Milo Ventimiglia gives a strong performance as Peter Petrelli, but he disappears for long stretches of the second half of the season (more on this later). At first he comes across like you’d want your hero to be - eager to help, believing in himself when others don’t, etc. But then he starts to become whiny and brooding, and he’s barely likeable by the end (that’s not Milo’s fault, it’s the writers). Peter starts out basically as the “main” character and he’s the plot point that drives most of the series. He should have been featured more.

One of my other complaints was that there was a real lack of humour in the series. I don’t want it to be joke-y or campy, but everyone took themselves sooo seriously. Hiro and Ando provided the only comic relief, and even that was a little out of place seeing as how Hiro is the only one to really embrace his powers and responsibility. I hope that going forward, everyone lightens up a little.

Meanwhile the villain of the piece, Zachary Quinto’s Sylar, is a little more troublesome. First of all, while Qunito does a fine job, it’s hard to find him threatening. He’s tall, lanky, a bit socially awkward, with a squeaky voice. Maybe that’s the point - after all I think I just described every famous serial killer - and I wouldn’t want a traditional bombastic, ego-driven super-villain, but still… I don’t know, give him the aforementioned George Takei’s deep baritone voice and he would have been a lot more effective.

As a character, Sylar shows even more weakness. What’s his motivation? Power? To what end? It’s never made clear. Especially at the end when he (SPOILER) steals Ted’s power. He knows Ted is essentially a human bomb. He knows it’ll make him blow up, and he’s already said he doesn’t want to kill “innocents.” Why would he want it? So he can boil his coffee faster?

Unclear motivation for a villain can be a story killer. Remember, most bad guys don’t know they’re evil. There seems to be no reason for Sylar to do what he’s doing other than “he’s evil.” That’s not enough. And if he’s just “insane,” well that’s even more lame.

The second half of the season definitely slowed down and it hurt the show in the end. In the first half, we met everyone and watched the connections between them grow, until the “mini-climax” at the high school, and it worked quite well.

In the second half, everyone just kind of meandered along until the climax. The problem was that we all knew what the climax was - the destruction of New York - so they needed to give us something else to keep our attention until we got there. But they didn’t give us much, and much of what they did give us were nothing more than hints at the larger story (particularly those about Hiro’s father, Nathan’s parents, and Mr. Linderman) that were not resolved. We just kept moving inexorably toward the big bang, without much excitement, and without seeing much of Peter, who really was the anchor in the first part of the season - and who we know plays a big part in the end, seeing as how he’s the bomb.

Thankfully, the climax was pretty good. As far as super-hero fights go, everyone got to play a part, and the battle between Peter and Sylar was well done. And it was great to see Hiro finally get his moment to be a hero - that was a very satisfying conclusion to his journey.

The “sacrifice” of Nathan seems a little hollow, although that’s probably just because I’ve seen the commercials for later episodes and know he’s still alive. Same with Peter of course. Oh well, I suppose that’s my fault and not theirs.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t give a shout-out to Tim Sale’s fantastic illustrations. Sale has long been one of my favourite artists and it’s fantastic that this series gave his art some additional spotlight. As usual he knocked all the illustrations out of the park, and it saddens me that, because Isaac is dead, we probably won’t see too many more.

Overall, I’m glad I waited to give Heroes a shot. Removed from the hype and debate, I enjoyed the first season.

I’ve heard the second season was not as good, but I’ll still give it a shot. I invested enough in the characters to want to see where they go from here; I’ll keep my expectations low and hope that, by the time I’m ready for season three, they’ve learned from whatever mistakes they’ve made, and have got the show onto solid ground.

Tags: Heroes, Television

So, my awesome girlfriend, whom I have mentioned before, has patiently listened to my weeks-long debates over the iPhone. Should I get it? Should I get the iTouch? Should I get nothing? Etc.

I guess she’d had enough because on Friday, she went out to buy one for me, and surprise me with it. She discovered she’s elibigle for a corporate airtime rate, a real discount over the regular Rogers rate, which would make the monthly cost more affordable. She is awesome.

Unfortunately, the Rogers store at the mall gave her the runaround about not being able to add services to our account (even though it’s in both our names) and she didn’t get it.

So of course she had to tell me (since according to the Rogers store, I am the only one who can add anything to our account) and the surprise was ruined.

But since she is awesome she said we could go to the Rogers store near our house together when I got home and get it. At this point I said, you know, you may as well get one too because you’re like me - when you see it in action, you’re going to want one.

So we both got one. She got the white 16GB, I got the black 16GB. The rep we had, Herbert, was super nice, and basically told us the people at the mall don’t know what they’re talking about. He gave us a really good airtime rate (even better than the aforementioned corporate rate!) and we’re taking advantage of the 6GB of data for $30 offer, which expires at the end of the month.

Unfortunately some shoplifters interrupted our purchase and activation, and by the time all was said and done we were so hungry we wanted to eat our iPhones (we were in there for 2.5 hours!). But in the end we got them and we are now the coolest people we know.

One problem of course, is that you can’t get Hotmail on the iPhone, not through the mail application anyway. Just through Safari and it really isn’t the same.

To use the mail app, you need POP3 support. Which Hotmail has… if you want to pay for it. Microsoft demands $20 per year for it.

So your left with three choices.
1. Pay $20 - yearly
2. Use the Safari Web browser to access Hotmail
3. Switch mail providers.

I’m gonna go out on a limb and suggest a majority of people are gonna take option 3. Seriously, MS, $20 a year? For a service that Gmail, Yahoo and every ISP offers? Come on.

I really don’t want to switch - I’ve had my Hotmail address for 10 years, it’s easy, everyone I know knows it. My girlfriend is a Hotmail user too, so this really sucks. Being able to receive anywhere e-mails is a big feature of the iPhone, especially to me since I e-mail more than I talk on the phone!

Gmail seems to be the most popular alternative; I’ve had a Gmail account from day one but rarely ever use it. I hate Gmail’s Web interface, and I’d rather have an e-mail client open all day, instead of a Web browser anyway - but I can’t get it set up to run through a mail client at work. (Ironically, I think my office must be blocking any POP server except our own. Hotmail? No problem. Sigh.)

Of course, the point of all this is to get mail on my iPhone, so no Web browser or client needed, right? This is what I got the thing for. And I’m paying for it so I damn well better use all the features to their fullest capacity!

But is it worth updating my address with all my contacts, and in every damn thing I’ve ever signed up for? Hmm….

Oh well, at least I don’t have very many friends, so I’m not inconveniencing too many people.

In the end, I am thrilled with this purchase. I’m also happy that, even though it means I’m giving Rogers more money, I got an official phone and am on a proper voice and data plan (rather than buying an unlocked phone). So much more convenient.

I have to say I especially love the way the iPod is presented on the iPhone (I imagine it’s the same on the iTouch). Maybe I was just used to the tiny Nano screen, but it just seems a lot easier to navigate and see what’s what in my library! And I love that there is a shuffle option at the top of every playlist! So much better than always having to go back to the settings.

I suppose I am a bit of a follower, going with the “in” thing. But so what. It does a lot of things and it does them all very well, and it’s a lot of fun to use.

Tags: iPhone

Ah, the sweet taste of victory.Thanks to a superb day from my Green Bay Packers defense, not to mention solid outings from Julius Jones and and Larry Fitzgerald, I rolled up 111 points and came out a winner this week.

I said I’d need big weeks from a couple guys and subpar games from some of my opponents’ players, and I did. I still consider myself pretty lucky to get this win.

So, no zero-win season for me. I just have to hope this week wasn’t a fluke, and that Ben Roethlisberger’s shoulder injury isn’t that serious, and maybe I do have a chance.

Final Results (that’s me on the top):

Tags: Fantasy football