Today is a hard day for me…. alot of pride being swallowed right now so bear with me.

You know I love my Xbox 360. Microsoft has its act together with that piece of hardware. The games are also top tier. Halo 3 at launch time was the best game out there, bar none, in my favorite gametype anyways. It was completely unmatched in regards to online play, because of Xbox Live, and thats what made it great. Call of Duty in recent months has overtaken Halo as the most played game on Live, and I’ve been playing it for about 6 months and still can’t put it down. It has also overtaken Halo in the hearts and minds of many (myself included) . So, I’m a hater of everything not coming out of Redmond, Seattle right now. That means you sony and wii.

Between my roommates and I we have all three systems so I have gotten to play a little bit of everything. It was always the 360 winning out. The wii is a party-game worth a few hours of guitar hero and after that just takes up space. The ps3 is slick-looking but nothing special, until I spent some time with it in the last week.

First off, the design is great. I like the 360 blades interface, it works well, but its not that easy for someone new to it to use, and it doesn’t look very pretty. I use it as a media center… dvd playback, streaming music from my computers etc…. and if it looked nicer it could be more of a centerpiece.
The ps3’s ‘desktop’ looks like a media center and that smoky effect is lovely. Its definitely simple, maybe not as intuitive as it should be with its icons, but still looks cool enough you don’t care.

But really, the reason I put my hands around that dualshock controller without the shock is that my roommate finally opened up Metal Gear Solid. From the beginning its like watching a movie, everything is very cinematic. The graphics are by far the best of any game I have ever played, and the way its shot recreates the bumps, wiggles and other effects you see in movies. At times you can’t tell if you are supposed to be playing or just keep watching. Its not my game type of preference but still I keep playing it because it is very interesting. The complexity is unmatched in a console game. There are more weapons and items than I can keep track of; like picking up a magazine and laying it down as a distraction for the enemy so you can jump him while he looks down to read it.

That sorta thing,….. insane. The cut scenes are a little ridiculous (I find myself skipping through most of them) but that is because I am about the game, some people enjoy watching all the story but that’s just not me. I’m sure this game makes some people very happy, like COD on a saturday morning makes me.

Part of it is the system I am playing on. My 360 is on an old flat screen while the PS3 is on a 32 inch hd lcd, but hanging a lcd mount over the very sexy ps3 box is a damn cool look. Since I got my hands on MGS4 I have quickly touched some of the other games, and mini-games and they are all executed nicely so far. The PS3 definitely has problems, and doesn’t have an online service that competes with live yet, so I wouldn’t go out and buy one. However, when I finally upgrade my TV and decide to buy a blu-ray player I’m probably gonna pick this one up (the PS3 remains one of the best priced out there and that will probably only improve as they keep up with MS price cuts).

First off , a big congratulations to dream.in.code for hitting 100,000 members. I remember when I became big ol member number 101, and I must say I have a stake in the site since its consumed minimum 1000 hours of my life, so congrats Chris on turning a nerdy idea into a decently trafficked website that puts money in your pocket.

The Rumor Mill :
Like last week, I am telling you not to buy a Mac right now. I want a macbook pro but am holding out for the holiday products. Apple has been doing some stock shifting with its 3rd party retailers, sometimes they do this leading up to the launch of a new product, so they aren’t stuck with thousands of out-dated computers when the new one hits.

Unofficially T-mobile will FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY launch their 3g network in 27 markets, including Austin and Dallas… hooray for being a decade late!

Better-Gmail-2 has been released on the world. A very cool FF plugin that can help out your Gmail organizational issues.

And lastly, a little time-killer, a bunch of real nice wallpapers. First desktopography, then this site, and finally interface-lift

It is my job to keep you abreast of all things Magento so you should know that v. 1.1 has been released to the masses. http://www.magentocommerce.com/download

I will caution you I had some upgrade issues with my theme. The magento wiki has fixes for them here but don’t expect an upgrade without touching the code, and if your using a live site your gonna need to take it down. Changes didn’t take long, 10 minutes, but they are most likely going to hit you if you have a custom theme.

Still a magento fan, be ready for my first full site with it coming soon.

Dreamhost has been my host for a couple of years now, and I can not say loud enough how awesome they are. Their prices are ridiculously low, and what they give you is insane. I am running 6 domains right now, and using only 10% of my alloted space.  They are always up with the newest tech, and I really can’t say anything about their customer service, because I have never had to use it in 3 years. Thats the best kind isn’t it?

One of the cool things about it is that I can offer you some referral price cuts. There are a bunch of these out there, most just wipe out the sign-up cost of 50 bucks. Mine does that and then some…

Go to Dreamhost, pick your account and for promo code enter GETTHEHOOKUP taking $50 off your order (knocking out the set-up fee) and giving you that disk space 10% boost.

The best deal though comes with a free-registration :

So, go to dreamhost. Type in MASSIVEHOOKUP to get $50 off your purchase (knocking out the set-up fee) and then a free domain registration.

Yeah, its some shamless advertising but think about it. Dreamhost is the best host, I wouldn’t recommend it if it wasn’t , and these deals are pretty awesome. In the last week I signed up NateMcGuire.com (nate.mcguire@gmail.com) and erikstark.com (not up yet) (starkec@gmail.com) so if you want some testimonials send them an e-mail.

I don’t have alot of experience with google gears, but I installed it yesterday and since then have been asked by a couple google services if I want to use it. Here is the text from google :

Google Gears is an open source browser extension that lets developers create web applications that can run offline. Gears provides three key features:

• A local server, to cache and serve application resources (HTML, JavaScript, images, etc.) without needing to contact a server
• A database, to store and access data from within the browser
• A worker thread pool, to make web applications more responsive by performing expensive operations in the background

Google Gears is currently an early-access developers’ release. It is not yet intended for use by real users in production applications at this time.

So, in essence, this is the kick in the pants online web services have been needing. I love google docs and the other tools out there to get stuff done online that would normally be reserved for desktop programs, but they always have that one key feature missing of being able to access your data when you aren’t online. Gears could fix that. My main use for it right now isn’t anything desktop-replacing, however, my google reader now has a little download button that I can download all the new stories and take with me offline. Thats pretty cool IMO.

As you read above this is just a developers release so not everyone is using it but I can’t wait to see what they do with it. Something to watch definitely.

Okay, I actually get decent traffic at the moment so this might get read by a couple of people.

As I type this I realize I hate the word read (pronounced red).

Anyways…. couple of new sites coming up, if anyone is interested contact me.

OrangeCampus.com :

A student-oriented website about the goings on around UT Austin’s campus. Austin already has austin360 and the statesman to keep track of the entertainment goings-on in the city, but sorting through all that for the college-aged individual is kind of a mess. There are just alot of things oriented at an older age group so I want to change that. I need some guest writers to write about whatever they enjoy, cover some of the events on campus. Its not like there are assignments but a nice way to cover what you are already doing. Also probably need an admin or two interested in maintaing calendars in sync with UT, etc….

BucketofAwesome.com

Really, this site stemmed out of my need to have two blogs. One dedicated to the more serious, and the other where I can upload whatever I want to entertain people with. More than just a college humor or video website, the scope of this one hasn’t exactly been worked out yet but if your interested in some light hearted content, let me know.

At first obviously both of these sites will just be building up content, but due to the fact that this site is getting hits , maybe these ones will start to pick some up. Apparently, someone is reading what I’m writing. So, we can work out a deal, after hosting/domain costs take 80% of ad revenue from pages/stories you write…. thats a rough idea but could be cool if we get some people involved.

Hit Me Up. OR hit up the comments.

My Californication review was a big hit, a bunch of eople who apparently had never heard of it got turned on to one of the best running shows IMO. So, I’m gonna take another stab at it with Dexter.

Dexter is about to go into its 3rd season , so its more developed and has a larger fan-base, but due to being on Showtime you may not have heard of it yet. Now that I finally am plugged into a cable provider that gives me showtime I’m pumped because I have seen the first two seasons and am ready for the new one.

Dexter is, much like Californication, a sharp, well-written and witty series… my favorite genre. Led by Michael C. Hall, the shows premise is …. well different. Dexter is a vigilante serial killer who also happens to work for the Miami Police Department as a blood splatter analyst. Note that ‘vigilante serial-killer’ part because a large part of the show is Dexter fighting is demons while pursuing a noble goal to rid the city of the bad guys.

It really is a very good show. I won’t say its as good as Californication, but definitely worth moving to the top of your Netflix Queue.

These are my first themes for Firefox which you can find more info about in the sidebar link. But here is the download for the University of Texas one :

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/8247 (you will have to log-in since this is an experimental theme) also, if you would like please submit a review that way I can pull this out of the mozilla sandbox and throw it up as a standard theme for download. Thanks.

Preview image :

Both themes are not a huge update just injecting a little bit of flavor into the theme.

For the Dream.In.Code Version check it in the sidebar, its still earlier in the testing phase so I haven’t uploaded it to Mozilla yet.

For the less obsessed with the geek blogs out there I’m gonna give you a run down of what has occurred recently. This way you don’t go out and do something stupid like buy a macbook right now with new sub $1000 models on the horizon.

If you do however buy a macbook, get it coated with golden shellback, a new substance that when properly applied coats the inside and outside of electronics to make them impervious to water. Follow the link to watch an IPhone playing a movie while underwater. A boon for all those who find it impossible to keep their phones out of the toilet or other water-retaining vessels.

In news for queers : The Iphone has been jailbreaked but more importantly also supposedly unlocked.

Someone still needs to tell me why I should buy a TV with a ‘touch of color’ bezel that matches the predominant color of whatever your watching. I don’t think a strip of color around my tv is going to increase my enjoyment of the program very much. But thats just me.

In other news, Do not tell me about The Dark Knight until Sunday when I will finally be seeing it as it was meant to…. via IMAX. I have somehow made it this far without losing too much, but I don’t want to miss out on experiencing anymore of it. Also, on the horizon I definitely want to see Step Brothers, Pineapple Express and The X Files. Not excited about the mummy because Brendan Frasier stopped making me laugh when I stopped being an 11 year old girl.

Personal Update : I am not dying. I was working out when my brain exploded so I had to get a cat scan but they say I don’t have a tumor or aneurysm. Damn. I had already decided.. If I got to Make A Wish, I was going to wish to see Jackie Chan… and then I was going to kill him for making horrible horrible movies.

Hello again. I need to find another outlet for these videos I find but for now I am keeping them a part of the regular blog, probably need to do something more like Jaredigital and let you guys keep a track of it via RSS if you want, that way the blog readers wont be inundated. So, I apologize, but here it is : The Font Conference