What was Nintendo thinking? Wii?

In what appears to be a marketing disaster... at least for all of us who speak English... the new Revolution console from Nintendo has been call Wii (pronounced We, at this point though I think it should be Why?)

There was quite a bit of other news released but the name!? Are they trying to latch onto the iGeneration?

It does have a cool demo movie... but still? It's here anyway....

I NEED a DS Lite!

I need a DS lite. I ran into a couple of guys in the mall playing MarioKart DS on their DS lites and the screens are so much better than the original version. I still beat them at MK:DS but it would have been easier if my screen was as bright as theirs! Anyone want a very loved DS?

Witness to a demoralising defeat

Ness has always been good at puzzle games. It's the one thing that she will consistently beat me in (usually by a considerable margin). So it's not too much of a surprise that she's had just about every puzzle game there is on the DS, Meteos, Polarium, ZooKeeper, Bust-a-Move DS and now Tetris.

There is no denying she's good at Tetris but last night I convinced her to play online after beating me in 5 Games straight. I almost feel sorry for the poor unsuspecting soul who innocently ventured into the wide world of online gaming, looking for a simple yet challenging game of Tetris against another DS owner. Instead what they got was 20 seconds of annihilation. Ness had cleared 4 lines by the time the other player had 4 blocks down. In fact I'm not sure they'd cleared 4 lines before they died. It was all over so fast I'm not sure the other player really knew what happened. Needless to say they didn't queue up for another round.

So beware those of you playing Tetris DS online... your doom may be lurking around the corner.

Honeymoon Flickr

I put some of our shots from the Honeymoon up on Flickr today. There's quite a few more that might put up (including some more shots from the wedding) but I've used up my quota for the month so it'll have to wait for Monday...

 

Magis MultiPot Lamp and Device Storage Unit

Ok so I said there were lots of gadgets I wanted today...

The MultiPot, designed by Dante Donegani and Giovanni Lauda, is a bucket-shaped LED lamp with space on top for depositing your keys and devices, a multisocket in the bottom for plugging chargers into and storage space in the middle to hide all the unsightly cables away.

It holds all your cables, plugs in your adapters and it's a lamp.... do you need anything else?
 

Portable Game Boy Advance DVD Player

Today seems to be the day of "I so want this" gadgets

Just when I thought that the Gameboy Micro was the last GBA style device I was going to buy along comes this portable DVD player has a slot in the lid for Game Boy Advance games.

It includes multiplayer ports to hook up three additional Game Boy Advances, a DVD/CD drive, MP3 player, 10.2-inch screen, wireless headphones and a wireless controller

It's just like having a portable version of the gameboy player for your cube with a screen attached!

(one in a very long line of) I need this clock

Courtesy of Valavien

This is the coolest alarm clock I've ever seen, you turn it on and off by tilting! That is just cool!

Public Holidays, Gaming and Clever Cars!

Managed to struggle through yet another in the soon to end run of Public Holidays. Dinner on Monday night was a lot of fun, endded up a bit down on numbers but a nice relaxed evening none the less.
Anzac day was spent lounging in bed until I worked up enough courage to make it to the Xbox for some quality time with Burnout: Revenge, unfortunately making it to ELITE rank (and therefore having nowhere to go) took a little bit of the shine off the game so I went back to Metroid Prime: Hunters and Advance Wars: Dual Strike.

I must say Metroid is about the most fun I've had in a FPS for a long time. The fact that I get mouse like control and I can take it with me (except today because I forgot) is a pretty fantastic combination. The online play seems to work quite well, although I keep getting my butt kicked and not having anyone else I know online is never as much fun (the fact it's not released here doesn't really help).

Started a bit of a health kick this week, (well actually from Saturday) walking to and from work every day. It takes about 45 mins from my door until I have my laptop open on my desk (except this morning because they changed the locks and my key no longer worked). Which is about the same time as it takes from getting on a bus, with the added bonus that I don't have to wait for a bus and/or pay for a ticket. At the very least it's making me feel more awake by the time I get to work.

Of course if I couldn't walk to work this would be a good alternative.

The metre-wide, fuel-efficient Clever car which can carry one passenger. Sure beats riding a Vesper to work! Not only that I could fit it in the car park next to the MX-5

From The Age

BRITISH engineers have unveiled a three-wheeled car that, at a metre wide, is designed to squeeze into the tiniest of parking spaces.

Funded by the European Union and backed by BMW, it is trumpeted as more environmentally friendly than the average vehicle because it runs on compressed natural gas.

The car, called Clever (for compact low emission vehicle for urban transport, and a possible swipe at the Smart car brand) was launched at Bath University in south-west England, one of the centres behind the three-year project. Its developers hope to see it on European streets within five years at a cost of as little as £5000 ($A12,000).

Exhibited in the university's car park this week, Clever's most striking feature is the way the chassis tilts, like a motorcycle, when the vehicle rounds a corner. The tilt system, designed by the engineers at Bath, is controlled electronically to make sure the car is balanced at all speeds.

One of the engineers, Ben Drew, said: "The main problem was finding a way of making sure such a narrow car did not overturn as it went round corners. The tilt system does that. It also makes it really fun to drive."

The designers say the car combines the convenience and fun of a motorbike with the safety and comfort of a car. The body is enclosed in an aluminium frame and plastic coating.

BMW is considering making the Clever vehicle if, as is expected, the EU insists that car makers produce a quota of green cars to counter the effect of gas guzzlers.
The vehicle emits about a third as much carbon dioxide as conventional family cars, with fuel consumption equivalent to 2.17 litres per 100 kilometres. It has a top speed of 100 km/h and takes seven seconds to get from zero to 65 km/h. It can carry one passenger in a seat behind the driver.

 

Back to some normality

Well after spending the week before Easter "sick as a dog" with food poisoning and then giving drowning at tugun over the Easter break a good go, last week was a welcomed return to work. It wasn't anything terribly exciting but it was a nice relaxing change. The best part was having Ness return from Sydney!!! Ben's story about their trip down though has to go down as one of the funniest car tales I've every heard.

Lots of hours in Recovery did mean I got some serious time in with the DS! Even though I've recently started Metroid Prime: Hunters and Metroid Prime: Pinball, Advance Wars Dual Strike is still occupying a lot of my time while I'm trying to get my COs to the same level as Andrew B!

This weekend we decided to put a concerted effort into planning the decorating for our unit. So far we've basically plonked the funiture where it would fit and left it at that. Hardly any of the pictures have made it to the walls and we've made no attempt to work out a colour scheme. I'm not sure we made any real progress but we at least decided what we wanted to change :)

Embarrassing Easter.

I had the worst/most embarrassing trip to the beach over the Easter weekend ever!

• Got dumped and knocked out by my board
• Came to in a rip a long way from the shore without a board having swallowed a lot
  
• Board made it back to the beach without me...
  
• Struggled to make it back against the rip only to make it back as far as the second break
  
• Made it as far as a bank to have it collapse underneath me.
• Got swamped a few more times.
• Just couldn't ever get my breath back after being out under the water and swallowing so much of it.
  
• Got picked up on a long board by my Dad (lucky he went out with me)semi conscious
  
• Collapsed on beach
• Came to surrounded by life guards and TV cameras
• Ambulance then Neck brace then Spinal board and off to hospital
• Cat scans and then kept in for observation!

What an Easter.... at least I made it back to blog about it! Can't believe I made it as a Surf statistic.

Thanks to all the people who helped me on the beach, the guys that called the ambos and the life savers. I never made it conscious enough to find out to who you were, but my biggest thanks to you!

Also huge thanks to my Dad you made it out to get me.

USB Heating Gloves

This is specially for Ness and all you other cold people.... (from Gizmodo)

USB Heating Gloves

Spring is supposedly here and it's allegedly not so cold during the day that one can go out in a fleece hoodie instead of a winter coat. We wouldn't know from experience, since Gawker Media recently had us fitted with house arrest anklets to keep us home typing up posts for your enjoyment. At any rate, if the weather is still so chilly as to keep you from comfortably typing on your keyboard or playing games, you might want to purchase a pair of USB heating gloves.

These wool gloves with heating elements inside have two heat settings and can rise ten degrees in five minutes, making sure your hands are toasty warm for optimal Katamari rolling. $22 for a pair, and they come with cables you can plug into any computer or game console with a USB port. These plus a Slanket and you're set for next winter!

Bad Gluten!

It's not fair! Sarsaparilla contains Gluten... Strike yet another thing off the list....

Back into it...

Well we got back from Tasmania late on Wednesday afternoon and welcomed the surroundings of home. Tasmania was great and the scenery was just wonderful but we did miss the comforts of the city. Especially the ability to get good coffee... I've tried to rectify this with about 10 visits to Naked Coffee since we got back. Ness happily settled back into her Biggest Loser addiction. Fortunately the Topfield came into it's own while we were away managing to capture all our usual shows without a hitch. I was half expecting it to run out of space or loose power or something else to go wrong, but it pull through with flying colours.

The strangest bit about being in Tassie, was the feeling that you were just completely cut off from the rest of the world. I'm still catching up with what when on in the two weeks while I was away...

Wedding Photos

Haven't got any of the professional shots yet but I've started putting some of the ones collected from various cameras and put them up on Flickr.

If you've got any to add let me know!

BTW Thanks to Susan, Craig and Leila for taking shots on my camera!

Bound for home

We're halfway through the journey home. Werw glad to be heading back to some civilization and phone reception