She has a seriously badass tattoo:

My wife now loves Richmond more than I do and is way cooler than me.

Technorati Tags: wtf

Not to nerd it up too much, but I canceled my Xbox Live service today — after much travail. I got an email from Microsoft saying they were about to automatically charge my credit card fifty bucks if I didn’t do anything about it. I popped on xboxlive.com and started to look for the “Cancel Your Service” link.

Well, that link doesn’t exist.

I logged into Microsoft Passport or whatever and I was prompted with a form allowing me to upgrade my Xbox Live account! There were zero other options.

I ended up having to search the site for “cancel xbox live” and then scroll down three pages for one sentence that said “call this phone number.” Ugh. After calling the number I had to listen to “Max” their super hip phone-answering-robot, who for some reason couldn’t understand anything I said. Finally I got to the right place and was put on hold to four measures of techno music with the lyrics: “equality, fairness, super harmony.”

It was awesome.

Technorati Tags: video games, wtf

I have a Wii. It took standing in a line for eight hours Saturday night (until Sunday morning) to get one (in the freezing cold), but I got one. Wolf, I saw your brother there. He has a massive dog.

Here are some initial thoughts on the Wii:

• The position/orientation sensor of the Wiimote is awesome. The best demo of this is Baseball on Wiisports. The onscreen bat behaves just like you would expect it to. You can even “waggle” it around pre-swing like they do “in the pros.” After playing around a bit with it I am convinced you could make a kickass sword fighting game. The other great thing about the position/orientation sensor is it is radio based, so you don’t need to have the Wiimote pointed at anything in particular.
• The pointer sensor of the Wiimote is “ok.” I mean it works great, but it is infrared. So if you want it to work while laying on the couch you have to make sure your two big dogs don’t walk infront of you while you are trying to use the boomerang to collect some hearts and rupees. This will be frustrating. I think they want me to sit directly in front of the TV — I am too lazy for this.
• There were lots of ladies in line for the Wii. It seems like Nintendo’s push to bring in non-traditional gamers is working. My wife personally loves WiiSports Tennis.
• I really really wish the Weather Channel and News Channel were up and working. Wikipedia says that those will be up on Dec. 20th and Jan. 27th respectively.
• Speaking of Channels the Internet Channel (ie. Opera Browser) comes out sometime in June. SIGH SO FAR AWAY.

I’m not really going to talk about the games because I don’t want to ruin anything for anyone. But yeah. Nintendo = my boyfriend.

Technorati Tags: video games

Last night I went to the Northside Walmart to pick up a second Wii controller. Word on the internet-slash-street had been Walmart would put Wii software and accessories on the shelves on the 16th. To alleviate stress during the Wii Launch I thought I would pick up my second controller ahead of time.

I got to the store and BOOM the Wiimote sat glistening in its plastic packaging. A little white rectangle of joy. Since the Wiimote is an accessory it was set on a shelf in the electronics department — not behind the glass shelves.

Here is the conversation I had when trying to actually buy my Wiimote.

**Cash Registers beeps and flashes “Item not salable”**

Cashier: We can’t sell this yet.
Me: Uhh it was on the shelf?
C: Sorry you can’t buy it yet.
Me: Umm it had a price tag and it was on the shelf.
C: Oh, those are just for display.

WTF? So know that some items in Walmart actually aren’t for sale even though they may appear to be, they are just for display.

Technorati Tags: technology, video games, wtf

Three cops ask a student to leave a UCLA building and when he refuses they tase him. Many times. This video makes me sad for America. At least the surrounding students try to help by getting the cops badge number and pleading for them to stop shocking the guy.

**UPDATE:** The article from the UCLA student paper

Technorati Tags: crime, wtf

If you want people to be smarter, all you have to do is tell them that they can make themselves smarter.

Yeah, sounds ridiculous, right? But check it out. It’s a given that most people think that intelligence is fixed - some people are just smarter. Maybe it’s genetics, and maybe it’s upbringing, but once you get to a certain age your intelligence is set.

But most scientific studies do not support that. People actually can make themselves smarter if they work at it. So what would happen if you told people this? How would they act on that knowledge?

Some people did that study. They created two groups of college students, and taught one group that intelligence could be changed. The other group was taught no such thing. The results were fascinating:

Those students who learned about IQ’s malleability improved their grades more than did students who did not receive this message, and also saw academics as more important than did students in the control group. Even more exciting was the finding that Black students benefited more from learning about the malleable nature of intelligence than did White students, showing that this intervention may successfully counteract stereotype threat.

Can this sort of thing counteract the effect of stereotypes enough to make a real difference? In a later study, the evidence suggests that it can. This same type of study was done on seventh graders. The control group learned about memory strategies, and the test group learned about the possibility of intelligence development.

As compared to the control group, students who learned about intelligence’s malleability had higher academic motivation, better academic behavior, and better grades in mathematics. Indeed, students who were members of vulnerable groups (e.g., those who previously thought that intelligence cannot change, those who had low prior mathematics achievement, and female students) had higher mathematics grades following the intelligence-is-malleable intervention, while the grades of similar students in the control group declined. In fact, girls who received the intervention matched and even slightly exceeded the boys in math grades, whereas girls in the control group performed well below the boys.

Now, who knows if this is real. More studies are needed. But IF it is true, it absolutely must be part of the curriculums of schools, starting at the lowest levels. I mean, I would contribute money to a campaign to put PSA’s on TV telling people that they can become smarter if they want to be. I view this as a really big deal.

Ten doll-hairs to the first person that can name the titular reference. To follow in my #2 All Time Richmond Blogger wife’s footsteps, here are some things that have been going on in my life lately.

• I got Guitar Hero 2. This was kind of a ridiculous purchase. Mostly because in a couple days I am going to drop 350$ on a Nintendo Wii, controller, et al. But seriously I am rocking some heavy shit. Everyone is invited over, especially those with a second guitar-controller
• Like my wife, I saw Borat and got yelled at by a cop. Last time I checked I was twenty-five and didn’t need to be getting yelled at by cops.
• The first ever Richmond Bros tackle football game was rained out on Sunday. I figure if we had had some momentum going we probably would have played — but not the first time. This Sunday, 1pm. FOOTBALL.
• I’ve been playing a ton of Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced. I am *into* that game. Reading has taken a back seat (and will for a while) for me.