So, the PS3’s now officially $100 cheaper.

Big deal.

When the most commonly heard response to the fact that you’ve dropped the price of your console $100 is “Still too expensive,” you know you’re in trouble.

The problem with the PS3 is that there’s simply nothing to play on it. Killzone 2, however good it supposedly looks (and I don’t think it’s particularly pushing the envelope), is a sequel to a nice but mediocre predecessor. Nothing else Sony showed is all that compelling, except the one screenshot they showed from Infamous.

Little Big Planet looks awesome, but there’s not really much to it that they’ve showed that really looks particularly… “fun”?

So, what’s that leave? It leaves a very short timed exclusive for Unreal Tournament 3, Metal Gear Solid 4 (which to me looked *awful*, from a narrative perspective – the trailer was one of the worst I’ve seen), and… what? A bunch of stuff that’s multiplatform that runs *better* on the 360.

So, I have no idea, honestly, what Sony’s hoping to accomplish with this price drop. They’ve taken something there’s no compelling reason to buy and made it cheaper. Whee.

Thing is, let’s say that the price of the PS3 drops $100/year. That means I’ll buy one in 2010. That’s a problem for Sony. They’ve got to come out with something that’s really mindboggling, and the problem is with the current power of the high-end consoles, mindboggling in a way that the 360 can’t touch… that’s just really, really difficult.

I wish Sony would stop talking to me like I’m a complete fucking idiot:

Jack Tretton, today:

“You’ve got the hard disk drive built in with every device and the benefits that brings; but that’s not something that consumers have ever had in a gaming system before, built in.”

Really? Xbox?

Thing is, this is just the latest in a long series of things that Sony reps have said that are obvious lies, and they *know* that they’re obvious lies. They even know that most people know that they’re obvious lies, but they do it because no one’s going to call bullshit on them. Basically the same reason the current administration lies with impunity.

Stop treating me like a moron, Sony, and maybe I’ll eventually consider buying your idiotic overpriced piece of crap.

So, the iPhone’s out, as everyone knows by this point. I’ve held it, I’ve tried it out, I’ve read a bunch of reviews, and I’m going to buy one.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not going to buy one right now. I have no idea when I’ll buy one. But unless they really screw it up more than it’s already screwed up, when my current Nokia e62 dies, I’ll almost certainly end up with an iPhone.

For the most part, the things that it currently does badly, I don’t really care all that much about. I don’t really use a lot of data – the times when I want it, I won’t care that it’s slow. I’ll be looking up an address somewhere, or killing some time waiting in a line or something. I don’t do much in the way of MMS/text messaging, etc.

Physically, the iPhone is gorgeous. Seductive. The screen is beautiful, and the UI is good. I’ve never seen a UI on a phone that comes anywhere even remotely close to the iPhone’s UI. As much as I generally like Sony Ericsson’s UI, or Nokia’s UI, finding various options and functionality in those phones is like searching for a needle in a haystack. There’s almost no rhyme or reason to it, and as a result, the functionality may as well not exist.

On top of that, it seems like the first convergence device that actually makes sense. I could have an episode of Top Gear, some music, my calendar all on the phone, and all of them would not only be functionally useable, but a *pleasure* to use.

So, yeah – my next phone is very, very likely to be an iPhone. Who knows when that’ll be, but who cares, either?

Busy weekend. Our friend M came down for the weekend from Seattle, which was awesome. It’s always really great to see him, and being able to hang out with him for almost two days solid was a rare treat.

I’ve been painting the Mini’s roof. Yesterday, I did a final sand with 240 grit sandpaper on a power sander, and applied the first coat of paint (with help from Ei-Nyung & her younger brother). It was a bit too thick, and got a bit “orange peel”y, but it was a good start nonetheless. The problem was that the nice glossy white revealed a couple noticeable divots in the otherwise smooth roof. So, I mixed up some more Bondo, and filled ’em in, then sanded it down. Put another coat of paint on this afternoon, which was basically just mineral spirits with the paint that I wrung out of the roller yesterday. Really thin coat – maybe too thin.

I let that dry for a couple hours, and then gave it a once-over with 600 grit sandpaper and a spray bottle of water. It’s about half sanded. Needs another pass just to get the blobs out. I don’t think the paint had fully hardened either, so it felt a touch gummy. Still, the roof of the Mini is distinctly white now (Canvas White, according to the paint can), and needs about four to six more coats with a wetsanding every two coats. I think it’s gonna be really great when it’s done.

After doing the roof, there’s some spots I’m going to try to fix on the burgundy part of the body, and I’m hoping that I can match the paint so I don’t have to paint the whole car, but who knows? Either way, it’s not that bad – it’s time-consuming, but satisfying and fun.

I think in the end, the roof, the side mirrors, stripes on the hood and the wheels will all be this canvas white color, and the rest of the body will be burgundy.

Then, I just need to get to the mechanic, and have them figure out why the clutch is slipping once the car’s warmed up. Talk about having my priorities backwards. Heh.

Also spent about an hour and a half pulling up weeds, and ended up with blisters on my right middle finger. Fun times. Tomorrow, I go back to work, where I have literally nothing to do.

Seriously, is there any question as to whether I liked this movie? Brad Bird (The Iron Giant, The Incredibles) has made some of my absolute favorite movies. It’s about food. It’s Pixar. If you have to ask, still, you really don’t know me.

Still, it’s *astonishing*. The animation and art direction make every other media company look like they’re a trout, flailing around on dry land. Nothing even comes remotely close to the quality and vision of the animation. No offense to my friends at their competition.

What Pixar’s done, to me, is staggering. Their track record (the opening short was awesome) is second to none, their technology is cutting edge, and from all accounts I’ve heard, it’s a great place to work. Blows my mind. I can only aspire to one day be able to make something of such staggering *quality*. ‘Till then, I guess I’ll have to wait for Brad Bird/Pixar’s next movie.

Bush just commuted Scooter Libby’s sentence. If you commit a crime under this administration, there’s apparently no consequence for anything. Commit a felony? Get off scot free. This is such a fucking joke, it’s just unbelievable. Maybe if Scooter had murdered someone, he would at least have gotten parole…

Christ, what has this fucking country come to?

So, there’s one thing I want to mention re: the iPhone launch – I’m sure everyone’s sick to death of hearing about the iPhone. All I want to say is THANK YOU to Apple for producing enough of these things that the jackasses who sat in line for days looked like complete assholes when you could walk into a store the next morning and pick one up without standing in line.

Thank you.

After the PS3 launch, I just assumed that every tech launch afterwards would exploit the eBay assholes for publicity’s sake – that the “value” of the product would be based solely on the potential eBay markup. And Nintendo’s idiotic inability to get Wiis in the channel would just feed the fury. Fortunately, a bunch of morons got burned on the PS3 launch, getting stuck with 2 or 3 units they’d have to sell at a loss. With the iPhone, hopefully even more people got hosed, and maybe we’ll start to see a trend where manufacturers realize it’s to their benefit to produce enough to meet demand on day one, and that the eBay goons realize they’re gonna continue to get screwed.

I doubt it, but you know, I can hope. Still, thanks, Apple, for showing how a product launch should be run.

Penny Arcade linked to this – it’s fascinating and terrible.

I don’t know why, but when I get really bored at work and there’s nothing to do, I feel like hitting myself on the head. I have no idea why – maybe it’s just that I want some sort of stimulus.

I feel like banging my head on the desk a lot these days.

*sigh*

So, spent the better part of the weekend cleaning out and rearranging the garage. Whee. Fun. The point is to make space to do rust repair and repaint the roof of the Mini. So, having now made 90% of the space to actually put the car in the garage, I figured I should take it out for a spin.

Put air in the tires (one of ’em has a leak), washed all the pollen and spiderwebs off (yeah, poor thing’s been sitting there for way too long), and took it out for a quick drive. Damn, that’s a fun car to drive. It really is like a little go-kart.

Problem is there’s something funky with the clutch, and I’ve gotta get it looked at – after the car warms up, the clutch starts to slip when going uphill (maybe downhill, too, but I can’t tell). Supposedly, it’s a degrading tube between the master and slave cylinders, but for the life of me, I can’t get to it to replace it. I’m just not small enough. Maybe I’ll get Ei-Nyung’s little brother to do it while he’s here! Ha!

Seriously, though – I’ll just take it to the British car repair place in Oakland, and see if they can figure out what’s wrong. While it’s there, I’ll probably also see if they can replace the plate that holds the shift linkage down, as that thing’s screwed together after having been broken in two.