Even though New York has some of the most expensive real estate on the planet, apparently it’s next to impossible to get a place with a washer/dryer, no matter how rich you are. The NYT spares nothing to get this gripping urban yarn of man vs. man vs. the spin cycle.
The Globe and mail has an interesting article all about how Dubai went from a typical Middle Eastern backwater to an insanely ambitious hub of construction, luxury and pretty modern thinking. I’ve wanted to visit the Middle East for a long time, though events of the past five years haven’t exactly encourage such fanciful longings. At any rate, Dubai ain’t exactly backpacker-friendly.
Local TV stations, long bastions of small minded thought and corner-cuttery (trust me, I worked in TV for five years, I know) are being urged to get online and think beyond the idiot box. Will it happen? I have my doubts.
The CRTC has decided nobody’s listening to cable radio (which is more or less right) and they’re going to ditch it in favor of more room on the spectrum for HDTV and digital channels. On the surface, that sounds alright to me, but if the cable companies employ their usual practices, that’ll probably mean a whole lotta compressed, artifact-laden soup on the standard definition channels.
But I’ll let Nordic Fury vent about image quality in the comments. His golden eyes and ears are scarred every time he turns on his television. 🙂
So the girlfriend brought her Xbox over a while back, and since I never finished Half Life 2 on the PC way back when, I picked it up and we went to town on it. Three weeks later, we’ve defeated the Combine, blown up Striders, and been jerked around once again by the G-Man.
The graphics, even on a regular Xbox, are stellar, and the game’s combination of puzzle-solving, shoot ’em up and a great story made it gripping as hell. It’s one of those games where it’s actually fun to watch the other person play, and keep your eye out for potential threats and solutions to problems. At one point Mel said “I HEART YOU, gravity gun!” as she shot soldiers at other soldiers, squealing with glee. 🙂
But now we’re stuck. I picked up Metal Gear Solid 2 at a flea market to tide us over, but we need a game with the depth and great gameplay of HL2 (for the regular Xbox.) I know Oblivion for the 360 is supposedly amazing, but I won’t be getting a Microsoft’s next-gen console for a little while yet. Recommendations, fellow gamers?
The NYT has a long (and I mean long) article on Google’s doings in China. I’m only one page in so far, but it looks like interesting reading.
I never owned one of these esteemed Commodore beasts (I was a Coco 1 man, back in the day), but I appreciate the perverse delight that comes from shoving a new computer into an old box. 🙂
Well, I’d say its that and the fact that Linux is a pain to use, maintain, and doesn’t work right with a lot of hardware. But at any rate, this is a pretty good summary of how much of a pain Linux experts can be. Though I’d throw Mac snobs into that mix too, since they’re cut from the same (if much better designed and tailored) cloth. 🙂
According to the Times, the United States military is planning, with Iraqi forces, to take back Baghdad from the insurgents, neighbourhood by neighbourhood. How they plan to do this without upping the troop count, I’ve no idea, but apparently the fireworks start at the end of summer.
Possibly, according to Macleans. While BUsh is a terrible president, it may be a little early to write him off as the worst Commander in Cheif in the last century. Not like Jimmy Carter…that monster! 🙂
